
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



tftt - "■ 

Chap. Copyright No,. 

Shelf„:__Z\La 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SEP 10 1898 o E 



THE ATHENy£UM PRESS SERIES 

G. L. KITTREDGE and C. T. WINCHESTER 

GENERAL EDITORS 



Btbenamm press Series* 

This series is intended to furnish a 
library of the best English literature 
from Chaucer to the present time in a 
form adapted to the needs of both the 
student and the general reader. The 
works selected are carefully edited, with 
biographical and critical introductions, 
full explanatory notes, and other neces- 
sary apparatus. 




WILLIAM COWPER. 



Htbenseum press Series 



SELECTIONS 



FROM THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



WILLIAM COWPER 



With an Introduction and Notes 



JAMES O. MURRAY, D.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

QLfa &tljenaettm JJteas 



14079 



Copyright, 1898 
By JAMES O. MURRAY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






<f«WiM**- 




7W0 COPIES RtCtlVED. 



PRE FACE. 



The time is not very remote when Cowper's poetry was 
classed with Dr. Young's Night Thoughts and Pollok's 
Course of Ti?ne. It was valued chiefly for its religious tone, 
and read mainly by religious people. His association with 
the Rev. John Newton, his hymns taken up at once by the 
Christian public and sung in all churches, added much to 
this vogue. 

Later, however, Cowper's poetry has been appreciated by 
the literary class. The qualities in it which commended it 
so strongly to the so-called Evangelical School have had no 
hold on the critics. Rather have they been regarded as 
being detrimental to his poetic fame. But the study of the 
Task and some of his minor poems has disclosed to our 
most discerning criticism poetic qualities which link Cowper 
with the higher element in English poetry. That the most 
influential of French critics, Sainte-Beuve, should have recog- 
nized in him so rich and varied a poetic nature will strike 
with no surprise, students of his poetry. 

As will be seen from the Introduction, there are elements 
in Cowper's life and surroundings which invest his work 
with peculiar interest. The personality of the poet, with all 
its sad and tender interest, will always attract some minds. 
Repelled as we are by the story of some poets' lives, the 
facts in Cowper's career from its beginning to its close only 
lend a higher fascination to his song in whatever key it may 
be pitched. It need scarcely be said also that an acquaint- 
ance with Cowper's inimitable letters will make us love his 



VI PREFACE. 

poetry the more. These letters are classics in English prose, 
and as such have their independent charm and value. To 
know Cowper most truly and deeply, one should know his 
letters as well as his poetry. They reflect light, each on the 
other. 

The accompanying volume is, however, devoted to selec- 
tions from his poetry, excluding any of his translations. His 
Homer, as Matthew Arnold has shown, has little merit, and 
the translations from Madame Guyon and Vincent Bourne are 
hardly of enough weight to appear in a limited choice of his 
poems. The guiding principle in making up the present 
volume was to give the pupil a view of the true Cowper, and 
Cowper at his best. Some minor poems have been omitted 
of equal merit with those given. But they only exhibit the 
same type of poetic execution. 

One reason for study of Cowper is found in his position 
as forerunner of the change in English poetry, imperfectly 
denned often as a change from the Classical to the Romantic 
School. Signs that the change was coming had indeed 
appeared long before Cowper sang, in Thompson's Seasons 
and the Odes of Collins and Gray. But not till Cowper 
and Burns were heard was it seen that the change had 
come, and Cowper had great part in bringing it on. Words- 
worth was a far greater poet than Cowper. But Cowper 
heralded Wordsworth, not only in choice of poetic material, 
but also in the poetic treatment of Nature and Man. What 
Wordsworth found in the beautiful lake region, Cowper 
found before him in Olney, and along the banks of " slow- 
winding Ouse." 

Perhaps our greatest debt to Cowper is found in his utter- 
ances which breathe so tender and deep a sympathy with 
man ; with man in his lowlier estate and sufferings. Stopford 
Brooke, in his Theology of the English Poets, has done full 
justice to the Task, as embodying this new and deeper note 



PREFACE. Vll 

in our poetry. Wordsworth prolonged, perhaps deepened it, 
but it was first struck by Cowper. It was a noble service 
to literature thus rendered, and cannot well be overrated. 
The marvel is that it should have come from that solitary 
soul, so deeply sunk in glooms unutterable, so apart from all 
contact with society. But it is there, and the author of the 
well-known lines, " Slaves cannot breathe in England," etc., 
should be studied by all who would know how large a part 
our literature has played in the progress of modern phi- 
lanthropy. 

No one can become familiar with the best things in 
Cowper's poetry without being conscious of the purity of 
tone which marks them. Doubtless there was too much 
asceticism, too morbid views of life, too much moralizing 
in some of his earlier poetry. But the Task is healthy in its 
spirit, and its poetic style is free from all that sickly intensity 
so often mistaken for poetic power. Its pathos strikes no 
false notes. All is simple, sincere, and genuine. These are 
high qualities, the best educators of a true taste. The mind 
that can appreciate them will not easily be led captive by 
any meretricious or fleshly school of poetry. 

Princeton University, 
July 12, 1898. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction xi 

Bibliography lxiii 

The Task (1785) 1 

Retirement (178 1) 159 

MINOR POEMS. 

The Nightingale and Glow- Worm (1780) . . . .183 

Report of an Adjudged Case (1780) 184 

The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1782) . . -185 

On the Loss of the Royal George (1782) . . . 194 

Epitaph on a Hare (1783) 196 

The Rose (1783) 197 

The Poplar Field (1785) 198 

The Dog and the Water-Lily (1788) .... 199 

The Needless Alarm {circa 17 91) 201 

On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture (1790) . . 205 

Yardley Oak (1791) 209 

To Mary (1793) 2I 4 

The Castaway (1799) 216 

Notes 219 



INTRODUCTION. 



COWPER AND HIS PLACE IN ENGLISH POETRY. 

Taine in his notice of Cowper 1 has said of the poet that 
his poems "were but the echo of his life." The remark is 
true, and true, as well, of many other poets. This, however, 
is not because Cowper's life was one of striking changes, 
stirring experiences, strong passions, or strenuous toils. 
Much of it was monotonous. The greater part of it was 
passed in seclusion. His horizon was bounded by the sky 
line of a somewhat obscure English village. It is, in fact, 
the inner rather than the outer life of the poet which finds 
its "echo " in the poems. But there can be no mistake as to 
the fact and the degree of reflection of this inner life in his 
poetical work. The Cowper of The Task is the Cowper of 
the Letters, lineament for lineament, tone for tone ; and if 
this gives so much of flavor and coloring to his poetry, if it 
makes up so much of its charm and power, on the other 
hand it entails limitations. Olney and Weston could at best 
afford only a narrow circle of interests, and in these the 
poet's life was centered. " But, oh ! wherever else I am 
accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for a genius at 
Olney." So wrote Cowper in anticipation of a criticism on 
his poems. Whether we view his life and surroundings as 
friendly or adverse to the development of his poetic genius, 
we should know something of his history in order to have a 
true appreciation of that genius. The sorrowful experiences 

1 English Literature, Am. ed., vol. ii, p. 243. 



Xii INTR OD UC TION. 

which preluded his lasting retirement from the London 
world, his habits of life at Olney and Weston, his friendships, 
and, above all, his insanity, that dreadful malady clouding so 
many years and never wholly lifted, — all this should be known 
in outline at least, if the true measure of his poetry is to be 
taken. 

I. BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 

William Cowper was born at Great Berkhampstead, Nov. 
26, 1 73 1. He counted among his paternal ancestors, 
Sir William Cowper, a staunch Royalist, who died in 1664, 
a second Sir William Cowper, grandson of the former, and 
an Earl Cowper, his son. The. poet's father was the Rever- 
end John Cowper, a chaplain of George II and the rector 
of Great Berkhampstead. The maiden name of Cowper's 
mother was Anne Donne. It is said that she could trace 
her descent from Henry III, and that she numbered among 
her ancestors Dr. John Donne, the poet. Cowper alludes to 
his gentle birth in the close of his poem on The Receipt of 
My Mother's Picture, — 

My boast is not that I deduce my birth 
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth. 

It may have been, also, some recollection of this ancestry 
which led his friend Newton to speak of the poet so often 
as Sir Cowper. Of the five children born to these parents 
in the Berkhampstead rectory, only two survived infancy, 
William and John. The mother herself died in 1737, when 
William was but six years old. 

Of his earlier years we know very little. His birthplace 
was a quiet village of some note in English history, first as 
a royal seat under the Mercian kings and once again under 
the Plantagenets. It was situated in a region of picturesque 
scenery, which Cowper, as a boy, knew well, for he says in 



INTR OD UC TION. Xlll 

speaking of his early home : " There was neither tree, nor 
gate, nor stile in all that country, to which I did not feel a 
relation, and the house itself I preferred to a palace." 
Cowper's school days began at a very early age. In the 
Lines on the Receipt of My Mother's Picture, he recalls them 
among other incidents of childhood, — 

And where the gardener Robin, day by day, 
Drew me to school along the public way. 

Shortly after her death, in 1737, he was sent from home to 
the school of a Dr. Pitman at Market Street, a village some 
seven miles distant from Berkhampstead. Here the storms 
of his life began. He was made the victim of a school 
bully, more than twice his age, and for two years endured 
from him "acts of barbarity" which Cowper would not name, 
whose tf savage treatment of me impressed such a dread of 
his figure upon my mind that I even remember being afraid 
to lift my eyes upon him, higher than his knees ; and I knew 
him better by his shoe-buckles than by any other part of his 
dress." Cowper in the account of his early life adds : " May 
the Lord pardon him, and may we meet in glory." But this 
forgiving disposition did not restrain the poet from writing 
his Tirocinium. At Market Street, too, began the attacks of 
melancholia, caused in part, at least, by such brutalities in- 
flicted on a shrinking and sensitive boy, attacks which were 
later to assume forms so terrible and become a mental disease 
so seated. He was removed from the school, but the mis- 
chief had been wrought. Southey in his life of Cowper says 
that when he " was removed from Dr. Pitman's, he was in 
some danger of losing his sight, specks having appeared on 
both eyes, which, it was feared, might cover them." To gain 
relief from his threatened blindness, he spent two years, 
1739-41, under the care and in the house of an oculist, Mr. 
Disney. Cowper was so far relieved from ophthalmic trouble, 



xiv INTR OD UC TION. 

whatever it may have been, that he was placed again at 
school, — this time at Westminster. He was now ten years 
old. Eight years of residence at Westminster gave him 
what education he had, for Cowper was not university bred. 
They were happy years, the happiest of his life, as Southey 
suggests with truth. It is not probable that the Tirocinium 
was at all colored by his Westminster experiences. Rather 
the reverse, as Cowper in the poem, alluding to the sports 
at school, says, — 

The pleasing spectacle at once excites 
Such recollection of our own delights, 
That, viewing it, we seem almost to obtain 
Our innocent, sweet, simple years again. 

And writing to Unwin in 1786, he thus recalls his sixth form 
days : " I fancied myself once more a schoolboy, — a period 
of life in which, if I had never tasted true happiness, I was 
at least equally unacquainted with its contrary." It does 
not appear that Cowper was at all wanting in healthy boy 
nature. He was fond of outdoor sports ; delighted in foot- 
ball and cricket. Nor was he a dull and mooning scholar. 
He acquired a good knowledge of the classics, gave some 
attention to logic, and before he left Westminster had tried 
his hand at English verse, the "first heir of his invention" 
being an imitation of John Phillips' Splendid Shilling, 
Verses on Finding a Heel of a Shoe. They are remarkable 
only for the closing lines, which seem to be a foreboding of 

his own fate, — 

From his airy height 
Headlong he fell and through the rest of life 
Drags the dull load of disappointment on. 

Throughout Cowper's life the influences of his school days 
at Westminster are clearly traceable. The usher of his form 
was Vincent Bourne, noted as a Latinist and also for his 
Latin poems. For him Cowper cherished an equal admira- 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

tion and affection. Years after they had parted Cowper 
wrote to Unwin, May 23, 1781: "I love the memory of 
Vincent Bourne. I think him a better Latin poet than 
Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius, or any of the writers in his 
way, except Ovid, and not at all inferior to him." There 
were also school associates between whom and Cowper ties 
of intimacy were formed, ties never wholly forgotten by the 
poet. Among these schoolfellows were Robert Lloyd, 
Charles Churchill, George Colman, and Warren Hastings. 
For Churchill as a poet, Cowper always exhibited an ex- 
cessive admiration. In 1792, when Warren Hastings was 
the object of general obloquy, Cowper came to his defense 
in the following lines : 

Hastings ! I knew thee young and of a mind 
While young, humane, conversable and kind, 
Nor can I well believe thee, gentle then 
Now grown a villain and the worst of men ; 
But rather some suspect, who have oppressed 
And worried thee, as not themselves the best. 

It was at Westminster, too, that he first met his cousin Har- 
riet Cowper, afterwards Lady Hesketh, to whom in his later 
life he owed so much sympathetic devotion and care, and to 
whom some of his most charming letters are addressed. In 
the Memoir of his early life, Cowper gives little account of 
his Westminster career, and even that pertains mostly to his 
religious state. He sums it all up in the following words : 
" At the age of eighteen, being tolerably furnished with 
grammatical knowledge, but as ignorant in all points of 
religion as the satchel at my back, I was taken from West- 
minster." 

For some reason, a university career was not thought of 
for Cowper. During his residence at Westminster he had 
been entered at the Middle Temple, and on leaving school, 
after spending some nine months in his home at Berkhamp- 



xvi INTR OD UC TION. 

stead, he was articled for three years to a Mr. Chapman, an 
attorney of Ely Place, Holborn. Writing to Mr. King, 
March 3, 1788, he says of this step : " I was bred to the law ; 
a profession to which I was never much inclined and in 
which I engaged, rather because I was desirous to gratify a 
most indulgent father, than because I had any hope in it my- 
self." In Mr. Chapman's office he remained for three years ; 
" three years misspent in an attorney's office," he calls them 
in his Memoir, and further describes them in a letter to 
Lady Hesketh : " I did actually live with Mr. Chapman, a 
solicitor, that is to say, I slept three years in his house, but 
I lived, that is to say, I spent my days, in Southampton Row, 
as you very well remember. There was I and the future 
Lord Chancellor, 1 constantly employed from morning to night, 
in giggling and making giggle instead of studying the law." 
The attraction at Southampton Row was the society of his 
cousins Harriet and Theodora, daughters of Sir Ashley 
Cowper. The consequences for Cowper were twofold : he 
got no knowledge of the law and he formed an attachment 
for his cousin Theodora. 

II. THE TEMPLE RESIDENCE. 

In 1752, having become of age, and having finished his 
time in the office of Mr. Chapman, he took chambers in the 
Middle Temple. Whether owing to the greater solitariness 
of his life or other causes unknown, he seems almost at once 
to have passed under the shadow of that melancholy which 
darkened his whole life, and which he had not wholly escaped 
in his Westminster days. Now it assumed a more virulent 
type. " I was struck," he says in the Memoir, " not long 
after my settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of 
spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have 

1 Thurlow. 



INTRO D UC TION. xvil 

the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack 
lying down in horror, and rising up in despair. ... In 
this state of mind I continued near a twelvemonth." A 
timely change of scene at Southampton averted the threat- 
ening evil and restored him to comparative cheerfulness. 
Soon after his return to London, he was called to the bar, 
June 14, 1754. Meantime the affairs of love were engrossing 
him. The affection of Cowper for his cousin Theodora was 
fully returned by her. Cowper sought her hand in marriage ; 
but her father, Sir Ashley, set his face resolutely against 
the union. And so the two lives were parted. Theodora 
Cowper never loved again. She was faithful throughout her 
life to the memory of this affection and tenderly mindful of 
Cowper himself in the later years of his sore affliction. She 
sealed up the poems addressed to her as Delia, directing 
that the packet should be opened only after her death. This 
occurred in 1824. Cowper never refers to her in any of his 
letters. His poetry never touches on the sentiment of love. 
This silence has a meaning. The affection with its issue of 
disappointment was too sacred with him for common speech. 
Cowper moved from the Middle to the Inner Temple in 
1759. His worldly affairs were far from prosperous. The 
death of his father in 1756 left him with a small patrimony. 
As Commissioner of Bankruptcy, an office held by him in 
the irony of fate, he received sixty pounds annually. Beyond 
these sources he seems to have had no income. He awaited 
clients who never came, and the question of livelihood began 
to be pressing. This Temple residence, barren as it was 
of all legal occupations, had for Cowper important literary 
associations. He became a member of the Nonsense Club, 
composed of seven Winchester men. Its members, besides 
Cowper, were Bonnell Thornton, Colman, Lloyd, Joseph 
Hill, his lifelong friend and correspondent, Bensley, and 
De Grey. The club dined together every Thursday. Its 



xvm INTR OB UC TION. 

meetings were largely given up to literary fun. That Cowper 
contributed his share is easy to infer when we remember 
what his " whisking wit" in later days could do in such 
jeusc if esprit as the Repoi't of an Adjudged Case and the 
ballad of John Gilpin. Here was originated by Thornton 
the " Exhibition by the Society of Sign Painters," to which 
Hogarth lent his aid. Hence also seems to have come 
Thornton's Mock Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, 5? adapted to the 
ancient British music of the salt-box, jew's-harp, marrow 
bones and cleavers and hum-drum or hurdy-gurdy." Out of 
Cowper's connection with the Nonsense Club grew his es- 
says, contributed to the Connoisseur, a weekly periodical, 
one of the numerous progeny of the latter and Spectator, 
conducted by Colman and Thornton. These essays bore 
the following titles : 

No. in. Letter containing the character of the delicate 
Billy Suckling. 

No. 115. Letter from Christopher Ironside, an old 
Bachelor, complaining of the indignities received by him 
from the ladies. 

No. 119. Of keeping a secret. — Characters of faithless 
confidantes. 

No. 134. Letter from Mr. Village, giving an account of 
the present state of Country Churches, their Clergy and 
their Congregations. 

No. 138. On conversation. The chief pests of Society 
pointed out. Those who converse irrationally considered as 
imitating the language of different animals. 

He wrote also for the St. fames Chronicle several papers 
and the humorous ode printed among his early poems, 
entitled An Ode, Secundum Ai'tem, having for its first line 

Shall I begin with ah ! or oh ! 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

In a letter to Newton, Dec. 4, 1781, after alluding to 
Prior's political songs and his desire to imitate the example 
of Prior, Rowe, and Congreve in this vein, he added: "While 
I lived in the Temple, I produced several half-penny ballads, 
two or three of which had the honour to be popular." These 
cannot be traced. We could better have spared some heavy 
Parliamentary speeches which have survived oblivion in 
spite of their deserts. 

If this Temple residence knew few, if any, legal studies on 
Cowper's part, he supplied their place by studies in the clas- 
sics, ancient and modern. Homer was read and line by line 
compared with Pope's translation. Two books of Voltaire's 
Henriade were also done into English by him. But putting 
together all Cowper's literary work during the twelve Temple 
years, 1752-63, it is a sorry account. Cowper had reached 
the age of thirty-two. He was on the verge of that mental 
catastrophe which in one view wrecked and in another 
seems to have made his life. But he had well-nigh wasted 
these twelve years in literary and social dawdling. His life 
up to this point had no serious purpose and gave little prom- 
ise of any high future success. Yet his Temple residence 
stands connected with his future literary career in two 
respects: his vein of wit had been opened and his Homeric 
studies were to be used in the translation of Homer, to which 
in distant days he gave so much of laborious, if unsuccessful 
effort. 

The year 1763 is the annus terribilis in Cowper's life. It 
begins that long despair which stretched through six and 
thirty years up to his death of gloom. It changed the whole 
tenor and surroundings of his career. The crisis it brought 
on is all the more striking, as the very events which caused 
it seemed to open a more prosperous future. Cowper's 
means of living had become somewhat straitened. It was 
necessary to increase his income. Through the influence of 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

a kinsman, Major Cowper, he was offered the position of 
Reading Clerk and Clerk of Committees in the House of 
Lords. These offices were easily discharged and they were 
lucrative. But they involved also considerable publicity. 
On this Cowper began to brood, and finally shrank from it 
so morbidly that he begged in their place the less lucrative 
but more private position of Clerkship of the Journals. It 
turned out that, in order to secure the appointment, the can- 
didate must pass an examination at the bar of the House. 
Cowper's own words best describe the mental state into 
which he was thrown by this announcement. " To require 
my attendance at the bar of the House, that I might there 
publicly entitle myself to the office, was in effect to exclude 
me from it. In the meantime, the interest of my friend, the 
honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, 
all urged me forward, all pressed me to undertake that 
which I saw to be impracticable. They, whose spirits are 
formed like mine, to whom a public exhibition of themselves 
on any occasion is mortal poison, may have some idea of 
the situation. Others can have none." Cowper, spurred by 
such considerations, made an earnest effort to pass the 
dreaded ordeal, tried for six months to prepare himself for 
the examination. He wrote Lady Hesketh, Aug. 9, 1763 : 
" I have a pleasure in writing to you at any time, but espe- 
cially at the present, when my days are spent in reading the 
Journals and my nights in dreaming of them, an employ- 
ment not very agreeable to a head, that has long been habit- 
uated to the luxury of choosing its subject, and has been as 
little employed upon business as if it had grown upon the 
shoulders of a much wealthier gentleman." After a vacation 
of two months at Margate, he returned to London, awaiting 
the coming examination, " preparing for the push," as he 
expressed it. The nearer came the day, the greater grew 
his morbid horror of it. In his Memoir he says : " I looked 



INTR 0L> UC TION. xxi 

forward to the approaching winter and regretted the flight 
of every moment which brought it nearer. ... In this sit- 
uation such a fit of passion sometimes seized me, that I 
have cried out aloud and cursed the hour of my birth. . . . 
I now began to look upon madness as the only chance 
remaining. I had a strong foreboding that so it would 
fare with me, and I wished for it earnestly, and looked 
forward to it with impatient expectation. My chief fear was 
that my senses would not fail me time enough to excuse my 
appearance at the bar of the House of Lords, which was the 
only purpose I wanted it to answer." Soon thoughts of sui- 
cide forced themselves upon him. He recalled that incident 
in his early life when his father put into his hand a treatise 
vindicating the right of self-destruction and asked his opin- 
ion on it. His father's silence on hearing his adverse views 
was now interpreted as disagreement with them. He 
chanced to overhear two strangers pleading in favor of 
the right to end one's life. His mind was made up to the 
deed. Then follow in succession the abortive attempts, the 
laudanum, the drive to Tower Wharf, that he might drown 
himself in the Thames from the Custom House Quay, the 
attempt with his penknife to pierce his heart, and lastly 
hanging himself with his garter from the top of his chamber 
door. The last was almost successful. The breaking of the 
garter saved his life. 

Cowper's mental condition immediately consequent upon 
these suicidal attempts was one of distressing melancholy. 
It lasted for months. It is fully described in the Memoir, 
and there does not exist in literature a picture of more 
acute, unbroken religious suffering. His mania took the 
form of remorse. " A sense of God's wrath and a deep 
despair of escaping it instantly succeeded. ... As I walked 
to and fro in my chamber I said within myself, * There never 
was so abandoned a wretch, so great a sinner.' All my 



xxn INTR OD UC TION. 

worldly sorrows seemed as though they had never been, the 
terrors which succeeded them seemed so great and so much 
more afflicting." He experienced also physical sensations 
which oppressed him. "A frequent flashing like that of fire 
before my eyes, and an excessive pressure upon the brain, 
made me apprehensive of an apoplexy. . . . While I trav- 
ersed the apartment, expecting every moment that the earth 
would open her mouth and swallow me, my conscience scar- 
ing me, and the city of refuge out of reach and out of sight, 
a strange and terrible darkness fell upon me. If it were 
possible that a heavy blow could light on the brain, without 
touching the skull, such was the sensation I felt. I clapped 
my hand to my forehead, and cried aloud, through the pain 
it gave me. ... I never went into the street, but I 
thought the people stared and laughed at me. . . . I bought 
a ballad of one who was singing it in the street, because I 
thought it was written on me." 

All this mental and physical suffering finally culminated in 
a dream, which seems to have overshadowed all his remain- 
ing days. ft One morning as I lay between sleeping and 
waking, I seemed to myself to be walking in Westminster 
Abbey, waiting till prayers should begin. Presently, I thought 
I heard the minister's voice and hastened towards the choir ; 
just as I was upon the point of entering, the iron gate under 
the organ was flung in my face with a jar that made the 
Abbey ring ; the noise awoke me and a sentence of excom- 
munication from all the churches upon the earth could not 
have been so dreadful to me as the interpretation which I 
could not avoid putting upon this dream." The interpreta- 
tion was that his soul was finally and forever lost. 

After remaining in this condition from December, 1763, to 
the following July, Cowper was taken by his friends to Dr. 
Cotton's, at St. Albans, where he was put under medical care. 
It seems unaccountable that they should not from the first 



INTR OD UC TION. xxm 

have seen that what he needed was the physician and not 
the divine. At Dr. Cotton's he remained till June 17, 1765. 
Then he recovered from the acute distress of mind into 
which he had been plunged. 

III. COWPER AT HUNTINGDON AND OLNEY. 

It became necessary for Cowper's friends to provide for 
him some quiet home in the country. London was out of 
the question. Huntingdon, a small village near the Fens, 
upon the river Ouse, was chosen, mainly, it would seem, 
because Cowper would thus be in easy reach of his brother 
John, then in residence at Benet (now Corpus Christi) Col- 
lege, Cambridge. The choice pleased Cowper. He sought 
and enjoyed the society it afforded. He began to resume 
his correspondence with his friends. But what invests his 
Huntingdon residence with most importance to himself and 
interest to us is that here began his acquaintance with the 
Unwin family, which eventuated in his becoming an inmate 
of their house. He speedily became intimate with the son, 
the Reverend William Cathorne Unwin, to which intimacy we 
owe many of Cowper's choicest letters. Here began the hor- 
ticulture which for so many years gave him recreation and 
exercise, and to which he makes frequent allusion in his 
letters, and which furnishes a theme for the third book of 
The Task, — The Garden. Here, too, began that simple, quiet, 
uneventful, recluse-like life which is best described by Cowper 
in a letter to the wife of Major Cowper, Oct. 20, 1766, and 
which in the main would describe his life to the end : " We 
breakfast commonly between eight and nine ; till eleven, we 
read either the scriptures, or the sermons of some faithful 
preacher of those holy mysteries ; at eleven, we attend divine 
service which is performed here twice every day ; and from 
twelve to three W£ separate and amuse ourselves as we please. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

During that interval I either read in my own apartment, or 
work in the garden. We seldom sit an hour after dinner, 
but if the weather permits adjourn to the garden, wherewith 
Mrs. Unwin and her son, I have generally the pleasure of 
religious conversation till tea time. If it rains, or is too 
windy for walking, we either converse within doors, or sing 
some hymns of Martin's collection, and by the help of Mrs. 
Unwin's harpsichord make up a tolerable concert. . . . After 
tea, we sally forth to walk in good earnest. Mrs. Unwin is 
a good walker and we have generally travelled about four 
miles before we are home again. ... At night we read and 
converse as before till supper and commonly finish the even- 
ing either with hymns or a sermon ; and last of all the fam- 
ily are called to prayers." It could not be that such a 
religious regimen was a good thing for Cowper. It was 
neither good for his soul nor good for his mind. But from 
the time he turned his attention to religious life he was 
drawn toward an excessive asceticism. Lady Hesketh 
strove in vain to check this tendency. Evil results came of 
it at last. 

The Huntingdon residence lasted till the death of the 
elder Unwin broke up the home. The Reverend John 
Newton, making a call of condolence upon Mrs. Unwin, 
was consulted on the question of some suitable residence, 
and recommended Olney, where he happened to be rector 
of the parish church. His suggestion was acted on, and 
Mrs. Unwin removed to Olney, Cowper remaining an inmate 
of her household. 

Olney is the largest of a cluster of villages. Emberton lies 
on the south, Weston Underwood on the west, while on 
the east and north are Clifton and Lavendon. The river 
Ouse winds its way through surrounding meadows. One 
long and broad street ran southward, widening into a 
triangular market place, on the south side of which stood a 



INTRODUCTION. xxv 

large brick house, so long the home of Cowper. The garden 
was separated from that of Newton's vicarage by a small 
orchard, through which a right of way was purchased and 
a doorway made through the vicarage garden wall. This 
garden contained the "greenhouse" and also "the nutshell 
of a summerhouse," both favorite retreats of the poet, often 
alluded to in his correspondence, 1 the latter as the place 
where he did much of his literary work. From October, 
1767, to November, 1786, Cowper continued to reside at 
Olney. During the earlier portion of this period his life is 
marked by his intimacy with the Reverend John Newton 
and a consequent religious activity. He was Newton's 
constant companion in his pastoral visits. He essayed 
similar visits himself to the cottagers. He aided in carrying 
on the prayer meetings. All literary occupation seems to 
have been dropped. His correspondence shows that he 
was absorbed in religious matters. He corresponded with 
Lady Hesketh no longer, and wrote with less frequency and 
ease to Hill. The removal of William Unwin to Stock 
further deprived him of an intercourse which was always in 
Cowper's life a source of cheer. In March, 1770, his 
brother John died, after a short illness, during which Cowper 
was his constant attendant. In this last illness John Cowper 
embraced the poet's views of Christian life, after some long 
and anxious days on the part of Cowper, in which he was 
" wrestling for a blessing " upon the dying man. Cowper 
wrote a full account of his brother's illness and death and 
of his own religious struggle experienced while attending 
him. Wright 2 well terms it a "curious psychological study 
of the religious mind." 

It seems clear that a course of religious life, such as that 
entered on and fostered under Mr. Newton's active influence, 

1 letter to Newton, June 22, 1786. 

2 Life of William Cowper. 



xxvi INTR OD UC TION. 

was hazardous in the extreme. Cowper's friends seem from 
the beginning to have blundered fatally in their management 
of his case. We are not surprised to hear that in 1 77 1 he 
began to show some symptoms of derangement. It was 
clear that another attack of insanity, attended by the same 
symptoms, was impending. To avert this attack, by giving 
Cowper some mental occupation, Newton suggested that 
they should jointly make a collection of hymns, to be known 
as the Olney Hymns. " It w T as likewise intended," as 
Newton said, " to perpetuate the remembrance of an intimate 
and endeared friendship." During the years 1771 and 1772 
Cowper wrote a number of the Olney Hymns. They all 
strike one note, — plaintive, if not despondent. What was 
intended as a diversion probably only served to quicken 
the seeds of derangement lying dormant since his apparent 
recovery at Dr. Cotton's. The year 1772 passed, however, 
and there was no open outbreak of the disease. In this 
year he was engaged to be married to Mrs. Unwin. But in 
the year following, 1773, there came upon him an attack of 
insanity, in some respects even more dreadful than that 
which ten years before had blasted his life. 

The attack came on gradually. On the 24th of January, 
1773, Cowper was violently seized with his dementia. 
Newton, in his diary, makes the following record : " A very 
alarming turn roused us from our beds and called us to 
Orchard Side (Cowper's residence) at four o'clock in the 
morning. I stayed there till eight, before which time the 
threatening appearance went entirely off." It was only a 
brief respite. In the month following, February, he had 
a dream, the details of which he nowhere gives, but to 
which he made the following reference in a letter to Newton, 
Oct. 16, 1785: "I had a dream twelve years ago, before 
the recollection of which, all consolation vanishes, and as it 
seems to me, must always vanish." There are other allu- 



INTRODUCTION. xxvil 

sions to it in his correspondence of like import. It will be 
remembered (see ante, p. xxii) that in an earlier attack he had 
a dream in which he heard his doom pronounced. From 
the influences of the Westminster Abbey dream he may have 
rallied, but never from the influences of the dream of 
February, 1774. It left him with the awful consciousness 
of being a lost soul. He became the prey to other delusions, 
such as that Mrs. Unwin specially hated him, that his food 
was poisoned. He fled from his home and took refuge 
at the vicarage with Mr. Newton. There he remained from 
April, 1773, to May, 1774, an object of the greatest care 
and anxiety, but watched over with the most devoted friend- 
ship. Once more he attempted suicide, making the attempt 
on his life under the delusion that God required it of him, a 
sacrifice, as He had asked of Abraham that of his son. 
At length there were signs of amendment, and he returned 
to his home at Orchard Side May 23, 1774. He began to 
occupy himself at once with gardening, a favorite pursuit 
begun before at Huntingdon. To this year also belongs 
that charming episode in his daily occupations, his care of 
the three tame hares, Puss, Bess, and Tiney, of which he 
wrote the account in the Gentleman's Magazi?ie (June, 1784). 
Cowper's fondness for pets was a marked characteristic, and 
from Lady Hesketh we learn that he had at one time " five 
rabbits, three hares, two guinea pigs, a magpie, a jay, and 
a starling ; beside two goldfinches, two canary birds, and 
two dogs." The inventory should include a squirrel, which 
used to play with his hares. 

Besides the diversion afforded by these pets, Cowper 
sought further occupation in drawing. He tried his hand 
at landscapes, and humorously refers to his drawing of 
" dabchicks and mountains." He amused himself also with 
carpentry. " There is not a squire in all the country," he 
says, " who can boast of having made better squirrel-houses, 



xx vni INTR OD UC TION. 

hutches for rabbits, or bird cages, than myself ; and in the 
article of cabbage-nets I have no superior." It is of more 
consequence to note that while Cowper was thus occupied 
in so elegant trifling he had busied himself also with versing. 
Four brief poems, referring to national affairs, were written 
by him, and have been quite recently published for the first 
time. 1 To the year 1779 belongs the little poem The Yearly 
Distress, or Tithing Time. In the year following he wrote 
The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm, The Fable of the Raven, 
The Verses on the Goldfinch Starved to Death in a Cage, The 
Report of an Adjudged Case. These trifles, as Cowper called 
them, were written just as he made rabbit hutches or drew 
dabchicks or raised cucumbers and pineapples, solely for 
his amusement. 

The poetic vein which had thus begun to flow in the lighter 
and more graceful forms was turned into a different channel 
for a time. Madan, an English nonconformist divine, had 
published Thelypthora, a defence of polygamy. It outraged 
the religious world, and Cowper undertook to satirize it in 
his Anti-Thelypthora, published anonymously in 1781. Cow- 
per's satire has only the importance of showing the transi- 
tion in him from the lighter fancies of his Fables to the 
graver and more ambitious efforts of his didactic poems. 
Newton in 1780 had removed from Olney to London. 
Thenceforward their intimacy was maintained by corre- 
spondence. But Newton seems to have thought it his duty 
to keep an ecclesiastical supervision over Cowper's muse. 
We find Cowper writing him, " Don't be alarmed ; I ride 
Pegasus with a curb." Mrs. Unwin was wiser, and encour- 
aged Cowper in his versing. At her suggestion a longer 
and graver effort was undertaken. She suggested as a theme 
The Progress of Error. It caught Cowper's fancy. He began 
it at once, and then followed the series of poems in the 
1 Universal Review ', June, 1890. 



INTRODUCTION. xxix 

following order : The Progress of Error, Truth, Table-Talk, 
1780; Expostulation, Hope, Charity, Conversation, and Retire- 
ment, 1 78 1. The poems were published in March, 1782, in 
a volume entitled Poems by William Cowper of the Timer 
Temple, Esq., with a Preface by the Reverend John Newton. 
Cowper at first assumed a philosophic indifference to the 
critics. He wrote to Unwin, June 12, 1782: " Before I had 
published I said to myself, f You and I, Mr. Cowper, will 
not concern ourselves much about what the critics say.' " 
This philosophic indifference gave way to some anxiety as 
the Moiithly Review delayed its verdict. The London Maga- 
zine and the Gentleman 's Magazine both praised. The 
Critical Revieiv was hostile. The Monthly Review praised 
with qualified approbation. 

In the month of July, 1781, there came into Cowper's life 
an influence which changed the type of his poetry, which, 
indeed, may be said to have made Cowper's fame as a poet. 
That influence came from Lady Austen, whose acquaintance 
he made that year. It must be remembered that at this 
time nearly all intercourse between Cowper and his kinsfolk 
had ceased. In August, 1781, he wrote his cousin, Mrs. 
Cowper, " Though separated from my kindred by little more 
than half a century of miles, I know as little of their con- 
cerns as if oceans and continents were interposed between 
us." The acquaintance with Lady Austen speedily devel- 
oped into friendship. She is well described by Cowper in 
his letter to Unwin, Aug. 25, 1781, shortly after the inter- 
course had commenced : " A person that has seen much of 
the world and understands it well, has high spirits, a lively 
fancy and great readiness of conversation, introduces a 
sprightliness into such a scene as this, which if it was 
peaceful before, is not the worse for being a little enliv- 
ened." Cowper's letters draw vivid pictures of the inter- 
course between the two homes. Cowper, Mrs. Unwin, and 



xxx INTRODUCTION. 

Lady Austen became inseparable companions. They walked 
together. They dined together in the Spinney. Cowper 
and Lady Austen became to each other Sister Anna and 
Brother William. In December, 1781, he wrote his Poetical 
Epistle to Lady Austen, commemorating 

A friendship then begun 

That has cemented us in one 

And placed it in our power to prove 

By long fidelity and love 

That Solomon has wisely spoken, 

A threefold cord is not soon broken. 

But if not broken, it was soon subjected to severe strain. 
Perhaps it is true, as Wright somewhat bluntly states, 1 that 
Lady Austen had wholly misinterpreted Cowper's feelings 
and judged them to mean desire of marriage. At ail 
events, Cowper undeceived her in a very frank letter, which 
for a time broke off all intercourse. It was renewed, how- 
ever, in June, 1782, happily for Cowper. " We are as happy 
in Lady Austen, and she in us, as ever," he wrote to Unwin. 
Not even the autumn floods kept them long apart. Cow- 
per's poem The Distressed Iravellers was called forth by the 
efforts to come together. Lady Austen, frightened by a 
burglary, left her Clifton residence and was domiciled in the 
vicarage, and the intercourse was more frequent than ever. 
Not a day passed without meeting, and a practice obtained 
at length of dining with each other, alternately, every day, 
Sundays excepted. 

Cowper seemed at this time to be again sinking into 
another attack of insanity. These attacks seem to follow a 
law of periodicity. There had been one in 1763, a second 
in 1773, and now, after another ten years, a third seemed 
coming on. He lost all interest in his favorite pursuits. 
His pets called out no responses. He ceased his walks. 

1 Life of Cozvper, p. 288. 



INTR ODUC TION. xxxi 

He forsook his books. From this deepening mood of 
despondency Lady Austen sought to rouse him, among 
other means, by the story of John Gilpin. Cowper had 
already attempted poems in lighter vein, such as The Yearly 
Distress, or Tithing Time, The Nightingale and Glow- Worm, 
The Report of an Adjudged Case. But he depreciated what 
he calls his "whisking wit." The influence of Newton also 
was chilling to any such exertion of his poetic powers. But 
for such friends as Unwin and Bull and Lady Austen we 
should have had fewer of these " sprightly runnings" of his 
fancy. The real significance of this ballad, John Gilpin, 
which at once made a popular hit, was that Lady Austen 
followed it up by suggesting to Cowper a loftier flight for 
his muse. Hitherto all his poems had been in rhyme, his 
longer ones in the verse of Pope. She urged him to 
attempt one in blank verse. At first Cowper was not drawn 
to the project. She persisting in her request, he at length 
replied : " I will if you will give me a subject." With ready 
wit there came the quick response: "Oh, you can write on 
any subject. Write upon this sofa." The subject caught his 
fancy. Some flash of inspiration came upon him. He 
took up her challenge and began the poem to which the 
incident gave its name, The Task, and which in turn has 
given Cowper his place among English poets. The date 
when The Task was begun cannot be precisely identified. 
There is reason to suppose it was in July, 1783. Once 
begun, it was pursued with unflagging ardor. Within a 
twelvemonth it was completed. Throughout the letters of 
this year his references to it show how completely the sub- 
ject had taken possession of him. Before the poem was 
ended there occurred the final breach with Lady Austen. 
It would seem that he had begun to feel that she was too 
exacting. " I was forced," he said, " to neglect The Task to 
attend upon the muse who had inspired the subject." There 



xxxil INTR OD UC TION. 

is nothing to gain in trying to lift the veil which has at least 
partly concealed the cause of the estrangement. Enough 
to say that Cowper and Lady Austen parted finally. With 
her departure much of the sunshine went out of Cowper's 
life. He owed her a debt which he could never repay. 
There had been no Task if Lady Austen had not known 
Cowper. No reader of this poem should forget that it was 
composed under a weight of despair. It had become Cow- 
per's settled conviction, or rather his confirmed madness, 
that his was a lost soul, " a vessel of wrath fitted for destruc- 
tion." The influence of the dream, 1 the awful dream which 
revealed to him his doom, had never been broken. In his 
letters of this period, especially to Newton, he dwells with 
apparent calmness upon his irreversible destiny. In that 
of March 19, 1784, speaking of his despair, he says: "I 
will venture to say that it is never out of my mind one 
minute in the whole day." In that of Oct. 30, 1784, he 
wrote: " I am again at Johnson's [his publisher] in the 
shape of a poem in blank verse, consisting of six books and 
called The Task. I began it about this time twelvemonth, 
and writing sometimes an hour in a day, sometimes half a 
one, and sometimes two hours, have lately finished it. I 
mentioned it not sooner because almost to the last I was 
doubtful whether I should ever bring it to a conclusion, 
working often in such distress of mind, as, while it spurred 
me to the work, at the same time it threatened to disqualify 
me for it." 

Along with The Task were published his Epistle to Joseph 
Hill, John Gilpin, and Tirocinium. The latter poem was 
begun in 1782, after The Task was finished. Writing to 
the Reverend William Bull, Nov. 8, 1784, he said: " The 
Task you know is gone to press. Since it went I have 
been writing another poem. ... It is intituled Tirocinium, 
1 Vide Letters, Jan. 13, 1784; March 8, 1784. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxm 

or a Review of Schools ; the business and purpose of it are, 
to censure the want of discipline and the scandalous inatten- 
tion to morals, that obtain in them, especially in the largest ; 
and to recommend private tuition as a mode of education 
preferable on all accounts." This outlines the poem with 
sufficient clearness. It is difficult to see what turned 
Cowper's eye in this direction at this time. Nothing in his 
correspondence indicates the origin of this poem. Nor 
does it add anything to his fame. Beyond the well-known 
tribute to Bunyan inserted in it and the graceful, tender 
allusion to the school experiences of his own " innocent, 
sweet, simple years," there is nothing of enduring merit 
in the piece. It is an echo of the first series of poems in 
its satirical and didactic manner. 

The Task was published in 1785, and one result of its 
publication was renewal of his former intimacy with Lady 
Hesketh. Their correspondence had ceased in 1767. She 
renewed it after nineteen years of silence, and Cowper 
responded with equal warmth. Thenceforward to the end 
the friendship was unbroken. Lady Hesketh proved her- 
self the truest as well as most considerate friend. No 
sooner was his Tirocinium finished and the whole volume 
in the printer's hands than Cowper was fain to take up 
other work as a refuge from his sadness. He gave to 
Newton (Letter, Dec. 3, 1785) the following statement of 
reasons for beginning it: "For some weeks after I had 
finished The Task, and sent away the last sheet corrected I 
was through necessity idle and suffered not a little in my 
spirits for being so. One day, being in such distress of 
mind as was hardly supportable, I took up the Iliad, and 
merely to divert attention, and with no more preconception 
of what I was then entering on, than I have at this moment 
of what I shall be doing this day twenty years hence, trans- 
lated the twelve first lines of it. The same necessity 



xxxi v INTR OB UC TION. 

pressing me again, I had recourse to the same expedient, and 
translated more." Cowper's friends earnestly endeavored 
to turn him from this project of translation to original 
poetry. " I have many kind friends like yourself," he 
wrote Newton, " who wish that instead of turning my 
endeavors to a translation of Homer, I had proceeded in 
the way of original poetry. But I can truly say that it was 
ordered otherwise not by me, but by the Providence that 
governs all my thoughts and directs my intentions as He 
pleases." It will always be a matter of regret that Cowper 
did not take the advice of friends. He had, however, while 
praising Pope for some points in his translation of Homer, 
always contended that it failed, as a translation, in literal- 
ness. His letter to Lady Hesketh, Dec. 15, 1785, dis- 
cusses at length the merits and demerits of Pope's trans- 
lation. He conceived that he could make a translation in 
blank verse that would obviate all the faults. That Cowper 
brought to The Task an enthusiastic love for Homer and 
also some careful studies of him in earlier years, there can 
be no doubt. His letters show that no literary work ever 
absorbed him so completely. In January, 1786, he had 
completed the first transcript of the Iliad. Revision he 
found necessary, and it was not till Sept. 23, 1788, 
that he began the Odyssey. That occupied him entirely 
for the two following years. But the whole was completed 
in September, 1790. It was published by subscription, 
Cowper's friends enlisting heartily in the effort to secure a 
good list of subscribers. 

The translation of Homer had thus occupied him for the 
better part of six years. These years, however, were of 
great moment in his life. The resumption of his old rela- 
tions with Lady Hesketh led to a visit from her at Olney. 
Twenty-three years had passed since they had met. The 
visit was of unmixed good for Cowper. It threw something 



INTRODUCTION. xxxv 

of the brightness into his life which the estrangement of 
Lady Austen had withdrawn. Since she had gone the 
seclusion of Cowper's life was only broken by an occasional 
visit from his friend Unwin and more frequent ones from 
his other friend Bull, carissime taurorum, as Cowper play- 
fully dubbed him. There was growing up gradually also 
an acquaintance with the Throckmortons of Weston Hall, 
Weston. These were neighbors, Roman Catholics, culti- 
vated and genial people, who at once took Cowper to their 
hearts, gave him free access to their grounds, and for whom 
the poet began to cherish a strong affection. The gossips 
of Olney, seeing Cowper riding daily with Lady Hesketh in 
her carriage, noting the growing intimacy with the Throck- 
mortons, and also that he was visited at odd times by such 
people of fashion as the Wrights and Chesters, managed to 
let Newton know that Cowper and Mrs. Unwin were giving 
themselves up to worldliness. It brought down on them 
a bitter rebuke from Newton, to which Cowper refers at 
length in his letter to Unwin Sept. 24, 1786 : "The purport 
of it [Newton's charge] is a direct accusation of me, and of 
her [Mrs. Unwin] an accusation implied, that we have both 
deviated into forbidden paths, and lead a life unbecoming 
the Gospel. That many of my friends in London are 
grieved, and the simple of Olney astonished ; that he never 
so much doubted of my restoration to Christian privileges 
as now ; in short, that I converse too much with people of 
the world and find too much pleasure in doing so." The 
letter also contained an intimation that there was still inter- 
course between Olney and London, by which Newton would 
be kept fully informed of all the ungodly dissipations into 
which it seemed his old friends were fast falling. Toward 
such an assumption of superior virtue and of spiritual 
directorship Cowper in his reply to Newton showed only a 
just and manly resentment. The breach was soon healed, 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 

and the two friends were again upon the old footing. But 
the incident gives rise to a very pregnant question. Was 
the relation of Newton to Cowper one of blessing to 
Cowper ? Of Newton's devotion to his friend during one 
of his terrible outbreaks there can be no doubt. And yet 
it is true that Cowper would have been far better mentally 
under a totally different influence. He needed cheerful- 
ness, bright society, a round of amusements. He needed 
just what Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh and the Throck- 
mortons gave him. He was always at his best mentally 
when they were with him. He was always at the lowest 
point when the severities of Mr. Newton's spiritual director- 
ship were his daily routine. And, unless Lady Austen had 
started him upon his Task, there was nothing in the influ- 
ence of Newton to have developed his true genius. Even 
Cowper's dawning efforts in lighter vein, where his gentle 
wit played so gracefully, were viewed more than half 
askance by Newton. Cowper under his sole influence 
would never have risen poetically above the level of Truth, 
Table- Talk, or possibly Retirement. 

IV. RESIDENCE AT WESTON. 

It was during his Homeric labors that Cowper removed 
from Olney to Weston. The Olney residence had become 
well-nigh insupportable to him. Writing to Unwin, July 3, 
1786, he said: "When you first contemplated the front of 
our abode, you were shocked. In your eyes it had the 
appearance of a prison, and you sighed at the thought that 
your mother dwelt in it. Your view of it was not only just 
but prophetic. It had not only the aspects of a place built 
for the purpose of incarceration but has actually served that 
purpose, through a long, long period and we have been the 
prisoners. But a gaol-delivery is at hand." Orchard Side, 



IJVTR OD UC TION. xxxvil 

with all its associations of the greenhouse and summer- 
house and the parlor within, had become to him a dreary 
abode. "Here," speaking of Olney, he wrote Unwin, "we 
have no neighborhood, there we shall have most agreeable 
neighbors in the Throckmortons. Here we have a bad air 
in winter, impregnated with the fishy-smelling fumes of the 
marsh miasma ; there we shall breathe in an atmosphere 
untainted. Here we are confined from September to March 
and sometimes longer ; there we shall be upon the very verge 
of pleasure grounds in which we can always ramble and 
shall not wade through almost impassable dirt to get at 
them." The pity of it is that for twenty years Cowper had 
lived amid such surroundings as those of Orchard Side at 
Olney. 

The village of Weston, described by Cowper to Lady 
Hesketh as one of the prettiest he ever saw, lies to the west 
of Olney and distant from it about a mile. Weston Hall, the 
home of the Throckmortons, demolished in 1827, was of 
some antiquity, partly Elizabethan, partly Queen Anne in 
architecture, having been added to from time to time. Across 
the road from it lay Weston Park with its spinney, the 
avenue of limes, the rustic bridge, the alcove, the moss- 
house, all of which figure in The Task. Cowper occupied 
Weston Lodge, secured for him by the kindness of Lady 
Hesketh. The house, like the village, delighted him. He 
wrote to Hill : " I think every day of those lines of Milton 
and congratulate myself on having obtained before I am 
quite superannuated what he seems not to have hoped for 

sooner : 

And may at length my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage." 

These bright prospects were, however, soon overshadowed 
for Cowper. The new home had only been occupied a fort- 
night when tidings came of the death of his friend Unwin. 



xxx vin INTR OD UC TION. 

Soon, also, in January, 1787, only two months after his 
removal to Weston, there recurred the old malady. For six 
months he was under its dreadful shadows. The dream of 
years before seemed to have gathered fresh terrors for him. 
He shunned every face save that of Mrs. Unwin. Twice he 
attempted suicide, from which he was saved once by Mrs. 
Unwin and once by his friend Bull. At length he emerged 
from the attack and with suddenness. He took up gradually 
his old occupations and enjoyments. 

Cowper's literary labors during the Weston residence were 
far less fruitful than those of preceding years at Olney. 
After he had finished the Homer he attempted a poem on 
The Four Ages, but could not bring any poetic enthusiasm to 
its composition. Lady Hesketh suggested for the theme of 
a poem, The Mediterrcmean, but he found this unmanageable. 
He was at length induced by his publisher in an evil hour 
to undertake an annotated edition of Milton. For Milton 
Cowper had unbounded admiration. He had made careful 
study of Milton's poetry. He now translated the Latin and 
Italian poems. He made some progress as commentator. 
But he soon tired of this part of his work. He spoke of his 
" Miltonic trammels." He regretted having been caught in 
the " Miltonic trap." The work, happily, was never finished. 
He undertook, at the request of friends, to write " mortuary 
verses," harnessing his muse to a hearse. He wrote also 
five ballads on the slave trade, without poetic merit. But 
amid this desert there are a few very green oases. To the 
Weston period belong the exquisite Lines on the Receipt of My 
Mother's Picture, the fine lines on Yardley Oak, the tender 
verses addressed to Mrs. Unwin, To Mary, and the playful 
verses on A Retired Cat, and in 1799 the memorable poem 
called The Castaway. 

Cowper's Weston residence was marked by a much closer 
association with his friends the Throckmortons. His ac- 



INTRODUCTION. xxxix 

quaintance with them had begun in 1783, and the beginning 
of the intercourse is described in a charming letter to Unwin 
written in December of that year. They more than supplied 
the place of Lady Austen. The circle of Cowper's friends 
was also enlarged. New friends like Samuel Rowe and Mrs. 
King and Hayley, the poet, brought into his life new inter- 
ests. The friendship of Hayley for Cowper deserves to be 
noted among literary friendships. It was at this time, too, 
that his portraits were painted. Abbott and Romney and 
Lawrence in turn put him on their canvas. It seemed, 
indeed, as if the closing years of the poet's life were destined 
to be full of a gentle gladness, a peaceful sunset after the 
storms of the morning and noonday. This, however, was 
not to be. 

His newly found acquaintance with Hayley brought to 
Cowper an assiduous and sympathetic friendship. The visit 
to Hayley at Eastham, the devotion of Lady Hesketh and 
other friends, all striving together to lift the poet out of 
gathering shadows, are pleasant to dwell on. But for the 
most part the last eight years of his life are years of distress. 
In December, 179 1, Mrs. Unwin had a stroke of paralysis, 
and thenceforward to her death in December, 1796, Cowper 
was hourly saddened by observation of her failing powers. 
Her death was a shock from which he never rallied. He 
looked on the face of the dead, gave utterance to one out- 
burst of feeling, and then never again mentioned her name. 
In the interval between Mrs. Unwin's attack of illness and 
her death five years later, Cowper was again seized with his 
old insanity. It came upon him in the month of January, 
1794. He was haunted by the conviction that he ought to 
inflict on himself penance for his sins. For six days, " still 
and silent as death," he remained almost without food and 
irresponsive to every effort to rouse him from his mood of 
despair. At last, as we learn from Southey, Mrs. Unwin 



xl INTR OD UC TION. 

asked him to attend her on a morning walk. Her appeal 
was effectual, and with the effort to gratify her came back 
for a season a healthier mood. 

It was in these closing years, too, that Cowper, more or 
less deranged, came under the power of that ignorant reli- 
gious enthusiast, Teedon, the Olney schoolmaster. It is a 
strange and dreary chapter in his history. It may find its 
parallel, however, in the story of Lawrence Oliphant's subjec- 
tion to the fanatic Harris, which led him to forsake his high 
career and to clean stables at Brockton, Canada. 1 At what 
time Cowper came to know this Teedon is not clear. His 
first allusion to him is in a letter to Newton, Feb. 25, 1781. 
He was a pensioner on Cowper's charity. He, by his visits 
and prosing, at first bored Cowper. But he was able in some 
way to gain influence over him and Mrs. Unwin, and seems 
especially to have been regarded favorably by them as an 
interpreter of providential dealings. Mr. Wright, in his 
recent Life of Cowper, has fully detailed the Teedon episode 
in the last decade of Cowper's life. Teedon's diary, found 
in 1890, discloses the whole matter. It alludes to some 
ninety-two visits to the poet, to seventy-two letters of Cowper 
to Teedon in the space of two and one-half years. All refer 
to one topic, namely, voices which Cowper heard, and which 
were communicated to Teedon for his explanations or com- 
ment. Cowper was evidently under the power of strong hal- 
lucination. Let us charitably hope that Mr. Teedon did not 
practice on his credulity. It was proposed by Cowper's 
friends that he and Mrs. Unwin should make a journey 
into Norfolk. It was accordingly undertaken in July, 1795. 
Cowper, it is said, had a strong presentiment that the depar- 
ture from Weston was final, and wrote on the window shutter 
in his bedchamber two lines, still legible : 

1 Life of Lawrence Oliphant, by Mrs. Oliphant, vol. ii. 



INTR OB UC TION. xli 

Farewell, dear scenes, forever closed to me ; 
Oh ! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye. 

The two invalids tarried at North Tuddenham and 
Mundesley till October, and then made another change to 
Dunham Lodge. Thence they came by way of Mundesley 
to East Dereham, where Mrs. Unwin died. 

After her death Cowper's friends rallied about him with 
new assiduities of care. He made some small journeys. He 
kept at work on the revision of his Homer. But the end 
was not far distant. In March, 1800, he was confined to his 
chamber by illness. Asked by Dr. Lubbock of Norfolk how 
he felt, "Feel," replied Cowper, "I feel unutterable despair," 
and the anguish of years palpitates in the reply. Only his 
friend Rowe could be with him at the last. He died April 
25, 1800. The long-beclouded spirit had gained the ever- 
lasting light. The castaway had reached at last the port of 
eternal peace and safety. 

Cowper was buried in East Dereham church by the side 
of Mrs. Unwin. It was perhaps fitting that the two whose 
lives had been passed in so close companionship should not 
be divided in their deaths. But we cannot avoid the feeling 
that Cowper's wish, so tenderly expressed in the closing lines 
of The Task, should have been sacredly observed : 

So glide my life away ! and so at last, 
My share of duties decently fulfilled, 
May some disease not tardy to perform 
Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke, 
Dismiss me, w T eary, to a safe retreat 
Beneath the turf that I have often trod. 

He should have been buried at Olney. It was his true 
resting-place, as is Wordsworth's at Rydal Mount. 



xlii INTRODUCTION. 



V. COWPER'S PLACE IN ENGLISH POETRY. 

The time was fully ripe for a new school of poets in 
England when Cowper appeared. The school of Pope had 
enjoyed a long, almost absolute sway. During the greater 
part of the eighteenth century it was the fashion, possibly 
more than a fashion, since it had high merits. " Every 
warbler had his tune by heart," said Cowper, and even 
Cowper at first sang in his tune. It was this idolatry of 
Pope, with its consequent imitation, which was making Eng- 
lish poetry tame and lifeless. At best, the poetry of the 
Dunciad, the Moral Essays, or even the Essay on Ma?i could 
not meet the highest demands of the poet's calling. Its 
themes were too contracted, often too low, its song was too 
much in one key, and that the shrill notes of the satirist, to 
satisfy the nobler poetic instincts and longings. The grow- 
ing interest in science was kindling enthusiasm for nature. 
It was becoming evident that, if there is such a thing as a law 
of demand and supply in the realm of poetic art, the world 
would soon hear a new song to which it would lend willing 
ears. 

It should not be forgotten, indeed, that all through the 
long reign of Pope's brilliant school there had from time to 
time appeared poets who sang in very different strains. 
Thomson's Seasons had appeared (1726-30). It seems at 
first sight strange that a series of poems so richly suffused 
with love of and delight in natural beauty, welcomed withal 
by a discerning few, should not have broken the spell with 
which Pope's genius held the British public enthralled. With 
all Thomson's poetic merit, however, he was not equal to 
this. The poems of Collins, especially The Ode to Evening 
(1747), The Ode on the Death of Tho?nson, and that on the 
Popular Superstitions of the Highlands (17 49), admired though 
they were, seemed only harbingers of the new and somewhat 



INTR 01) UC TION. xliii 

distant strain. Gray, author of the Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard, had given to the world his exquisite odes, among 
them that on the Progress of Poetry (1755). But Gray 
" never spoke out." His notes, like those of Collins, were 
too few ; the strain was not prolonged enough to dethrone the 
reigning taste and bring in the advent of the Romantic school. 
It is doubtless true, as Mr. James Russell Lowell has said, 
that " the whole Romantic school in its germ lies foreshad- 
owed " in Collins's Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the 
Highlands. But it was there only in the germ and was only 
foreshadowed. The advent of that school was delayed till 
the century neared its close. Cowper's Task, published in 
1785, struck the new note clear and full. It caught the ear 
and stole into the heart of the English people. It was 
quickly followed by a similar note of wonderful charm and 
power north of the Tweed. In 1786, there appeared at 
Kilmarnock a thin, unpretending volume, bearing the title 
Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns. And, 
though Cowper spoke of them, alluding to the dialect in 
which they were written as a " bright candle but shut up in 
a dark lantern," the little volume was big with promise of a 
better day for poetry. In 1798, two years before Cowper's 
death, Wordsworth and Coleridge had published the first 
volume of Lyrical Ballads, and with its publication the 
Romantic school of poetry may be said to have been firmly 
established, despite the sneers of a blind and unjust criticism 
in the Quarterlies. 

That Wordsworth was a student of Cowper we know from 
his letter to Professor Wilson. 1 He quotes a couplet from 
The Task in illustration of the point he is making. He refers 
to Cowper's passionate delight in natural objects, though he 
objects to the epithet Cowper used in describing the "gorse." 
But it is to Burns that Wordsworth acknowledged most of 
1 Knight's Wordsworth, vol. ix, p. 402. 



xli V INTR OD UC TION. 

the shaping power his own genius had felt. In the well- 
known Lines at the Grave of Burns, this stanza owns the 
large indebtedness : 

I mourned with thousands, but as one 
More deeply grieved, for He was gone 
Whose light I hailed when first it shone 

And showed my youth 
How verse may build a princely throne 

On humble truth. 

And in the poem called Thoughts, written the day following 
the composition of the verses just quoted, he continues the 
strain : 

Through busiest street and loneliest glen 

Are felt the flashes of his pen. 

He rules mid winter's snows and when 

Bees fill their hives. 
Deep in the general heart of men 
His power survives. 

It is evident, then, that Cowper and Burns form the transition 
to or the connecting links with Wordsworth, and Words- 
worth embodies in his poetry almost every trait of the 
Romantic school. It may be that, in thus leading up to 
Wordsworth, Burns is the greater figure, with the most varied 
and far-reaching voice, but the lonely recluse at Olney has 
some claim for recognition as a factor in the blessed change 
that came over English poetry. 

Cowper's early poems give no promise of his future fame. 
Mostly written during his Temple residence, they are a 
species of elegant trifling. Some of them possess a bio- 
graphical interest. Those addressed to Delia, his cousin 
Theodora Cowper, carefully treasured by her and not pub- 
lished till after her death, are the record of that hapless 
attachment. The well-known alcaics, beginning — 

Hatred and vengeance, — my eternal portion, 



INTRODUCTION. xlv 

are the awful picture of his mental sufferings in the earlier 
stages of his insanity. The translations of the fifth and 
ninth Satires of Horace, The Epistle to Robert Lloyd, An Ode, 
Secundum Arte7?i show the vein of humor which later on 
found much finer expression in some of his fables. But the 
best that can be said of these early productions is that they 
reveal a gift of fluent and smooth versification, and this he 
shared with a hundred poetasters of his day, whose names 
and works are forgotten. 

These poems, with the exception of two, were written 
during the Temple residence. Between the period of their 
composition and that of his next poetical effort intervened 
that terrible attack of insanity, with its persistent attempts 
at suicide, the stay in Dr. Cotton's asylum, the removal to 
Huntingdon and then to Olney, the acquaintance with the 
Unwins and the Reverend John Newton, resulting in his 
domestication in the Unwin household. He had passed 
through deep waters. He had come under a religious 
regime, which absorbed him in religious thoughts and feel- 
ings and to some extent engaged him in religious activities. 
It should not surprise us, therefore, that the first utterance of 
the Olney muse should have been cast in this mould. The 
Olney Hymns were written jointly with Mr. Newton and at 
his suggestion. It may be said at once that whatever of 
lyric merit is found in them belongs to those written by 
Cowper. He contributed in all sixty-eight to the volume. 
A few of these have become lasting favorites with Christian 
people, and are found in nearly all the hymnals. The first 
lines of such will readily recall them : 

" Oh, for a closer walk with God." 
cr There is a fountain filled with blood." 
" The Spirit breathes upon the word." 
" God moves in a mysterious way." 
"The billows swell, the winds are high." 



xl vi INTR OB UC TION. 

" O Lord, my best desire fulfill." 

" Far from the world, O Lord, I flee." 

" Sometimes a light surprises." 

It can hardly be claimed for them (and they are his best) 
that they place him in the first rank of hymn writers. With 
very rare exceptions, they are pitched in the minor key. 
They are the moans of a wounded spirit. They embody no 
grand outbursts of praise. They deal too much with inward 
states, are too introspective to reach the loftier ends of 
Christian praise. Every one will feel the sensitive delicacy 
of touch in them, but must also be conscious of the lack of 
such lyric fire as kindles in the best of Charles Wesley's. 

Cowper had discovered, however, that verse writing 
afforded him relief from the gloomy thoughts which preyed 
incessantly upon him. He could forget his despair while 
his pen was in his hand. Again and again in his letters 
he informs his correspondents that his literary work is 
only a refuge from his sad thoughts. He was quite pre- 
pared, therefore, to act on Mrs. Unwin's suggestion that 
he should undertake some poetic work of a more extended 
character. Out of this grew the series of poems which made 
up mainly his first published volume. The first four, The 
P?-ogress of Error, Truth, Table-Talk, and Expostulatio?i, 
were written in this order and in as many months. Hope 
and Charity followed, and the series was finally completed 
by the two poems Conversation and Retireme?it. Adding to 
these some fugitive poems in lighter vein, such as The 
Report of an Adjudged Case, The Pineapple and the Bee, 
Boadicea, The Poet, The Oyster and the Sensitive Plant, the 
volume of Poems by William Coivper of the Inner Temple 
appeared in 1782. 

The longer poems all had a didactic aim. " My sole drift 
is to be useful," he wrote his cousin, Mrs. Cowper, regarding 
them. The Progress of Error is a satirical attack on what 



INTRODUCTION. xlvii 

seemed to him the vices of London society, etc. Table-Talk 
he describes in a letter to Newton, Feb. 18,1781, as" a medley 
of many things, some that may be useful, and some that for 
aught I know, may be very diverting. . . . Now and then I 
put on the garb of a philosopher and take the opportunity 
that disguise procures me, to drop a word in favour of reli- 
gion. . . . When I wrote the poem called Truth, by which 
is intended Religious Truth, it was indispensably necessary 
that I should pass what I understood to be a just censure 
upon opinions and persuasions that differ from or stand in 
direct opposition to it" (Letter to Unwin, June 24, 1781). 
Of Conversation, he wrote Mrs. Newton, August, 1781 : 
" My design in it is to convince the world that they make 
but an indifferent use of their tongues, considering the inten- 
tion of Providence, when He endued them with the faculty 
of speech ; to point out the abuses, which is the jocular part 
of the business, and to prescribe the remedy, which is the 
grave and sober." Of Retirement, he gave the following 
account to Unwin (Aug. 25, 1781): "My purpose in 
Retirement is to recommend the proper improvement of it, 
to set forth the requisites for that end and to enlarge upon 
the happiness of that state of life, when managed as it ought 
to be." 

An aim so purely didactic, and didactic in such directions, 
cannot be said to favor a very high type of poetry. It would 
be little short of a miracle if the poet were not often sunk in 
the preacher. Without denying the possibility of didactic 
poetry as one form of poetic production, it is safe to say 
that it presents grave difficulties to be surmounted, and that 
most didactic poetry is but prose in rhyme. We feel, 
as we read these poems, that Cowper had the Reverend 
Mr. Newton in his eye all the while ; that a truly poetic 
mind was struggling in the toils of an overmastering pur- 
pose to be preaching. Yet, on the other hand, to say with 



xlviii INTRODUCTION. 

the Critical Reviewer that this series of poems is " little 
better than a dull sermon in very indifferent verse " is to 
sacrifice truth to smartness. They are not fairly described 
as a "dull sermon," and the verse is not "very indifferent." 

It is not in these poems that Cowper struck the note of 
nature poetry which is so largely the charm of his Task. 
The remark of Stopford Brooke may be true, that in them 
he began " that extension of the poetry of Man " which 
was carried on by the song of Wordsworth and Shelley. It 
is also true that in these poems it was the religion of 
Cowper which gave his poetry its distinctive coloring. 1 
Cowper was feeling his way to a deeper and truer poetical 
expression of the same poetical ideas in The Task. For this 
he needed a different instrument, one furnished him by Lady 
Austen when she suggested blank verse. Cowper's choice 
of the heroic couplet in this series of didactic poems was due 
in part to his conviction that it was the true vehicle of satire, 
and satire was to be his weapon. He relied on the satiric 
humor in the poems for their hold on men. " I am inclined 
to suspect," he wrote Unwin, " that if my Muse was to go forth 
in Quaker color, without one bit of riband to enliven her 
appearance, she might walk from one end of London to the 
other, as little noticed as if she were one of the sisterhood 
indeed." 

It need scarcely be said that the tone of Cowper's satire 
is essentially different from that either of Pope or Churchill. 
If he did not follow them as models, he was unquestionably 
influenced by them. One has the feeling that what was 
native to Pope and Churchill is a somewhat forced strain in 
Cowper. The severity of his religious views, the almost 
ascetic piety which was his ideal of the religious life, spurred 
him on in cultivation of the satiric vein. Cowper had been 
a recluse at Olney for thirteen years or more before he 
1 Theology of the Englisli Poets, pp. 51-68. 



INTR OD UC TION. xlix 

attempted satire, and Olney was not the best point from 
which to judge of life in London. Cowper follows Pope in 
the introduction of satirical portraits, but at a distance. 
That of Occiduus in The Progress of Error, of Dubius in 
Conversation, of the Statesman in Retirement are illustrations 
of his skill in this line. But one cannot avoid comparing 
them with Pope's perfect workmanship in this kind, and the 
inferiority of Cowper is painfully apparent. It is not in the 
satire of these poems that the real Cowper is found. It is 
rather in passages like the description of the Cottager in 
Truth, or the Walk to Emmaus in Conversation, or of the 
human race in Retirement. It should also be said that 
Cowper has in these poems shown some felicity in the con- 
struction of epigrammatic couplets. They smack, it is true, 
of Pope's unrivaled art in this direction. But if they shine 
with borrowed light, they shine. Illustrations are easily 
found. 

'T is hard, if all is false that I advance ; 

A fool must now and then be right by chance. 

Vociferated logic kills me quite ; 
A noisy man is always in the right. 

Their want of light and intellect supplied 
By sparks absurdity strikes out of pride. 

A moral, sensible and well-bred man 
Will not affront me, and no other can. 

Philologers who chase 

A panting syllable through time and space. 

It is worthy of note that as Cowper went on with his 
work he grew in power. There was less preaching and 
more poetry. The last two of the series, Conversation and 
Retirement, especially the latter, are the best. Sainte-Beuve, 
in his Essay on the Poets of Nature, 1 gives the latter high 
1 Causeries de Lundi, vol. ii, pp. 1 21-138. 



1 INTRODUCTION. 

praise. It was a subject most congenial to Cowper. In a 
letter to Newton, July 27, 1783, he says: "My passion for 
retirement is not at all abated after so many years spent in 
the most sequestered -state, but rather increased." The 
leading thought in the poem, that the demand for retirement 
latent in all souls is ethical in its nature, was a new treat- 
ment for an old poetical theme. The germ of The Task lies 
in Retirement. Of this series, Cowper wrote Unwin that 
the different poems were all composed with the greatest care. 
This is evident from their workmanship. But had Cowper 
written no more than this volume of 1782, he would have 
been remembered, perhaps, and yet remembered only as a 
poet like Dr. Young is remembered. He would never have 
been named as one of the landmarks in the change from 
the school of Pope to the school of Wordsworth. 

If the world owes to Mrs. Unwin Cowper's advent into 
English poetry, it owes to Lady Austen that work of his 
which gives him his rank among English poets, The Task. 
This poem was begun in the summer of 1783. Cowper was 
then in his fifty-second year. He had been for sixteen 
years a resident of Olney. During those years he had by 
his daily walks come to know and to love every natural 
object and feature of the surrounding country. Kilwick's 
echoing wood, Cowper's oak, the avenue of chestnuts, the 
avenue of limes, the peasant's nest, the rustic bridge, the 
wilderness, the alcove, the woody brook, the moss house, 
the pightle, the old water mill, the poplar field, all of 
which figure in his poems, are illustrations of his close and 
constant familiarity with the landscape in and around Olney. 
If these objects did not "haunt him like a passion," the daily 
intercourse with them soothed him under the pressure of 
that despair which was forgotten only in converse with his 
friend or in this intercourse with nature or in the hours given 
to poetry. 



INTR OD UC TION. 1 i 

The Task was written in a year. In a letter to Newton, 
Oct. 30, 1784, Cowper says of it : "I began it about this 
time twelvemonth, and writing sometimes an hour in a day, 
sometimes half a one and sometimes two hours, have lately 
finished it. I mentioned it not sooner because almost to the 
last I was doubtful whether I should bring it to a conclusion, 
working often in such distress of mind, as while it spurred 
me to the work at the same time threatened to disqualify me 
for it." 

If we except the passage in The Garden, Book III, 

I was a stricken deer that left the herd, etc., 

there is nothing in The Task to remind us of the mental 
anguish in which it was written. The poem is redolent of 
cheerfulness rather. It breathes the peacefulness of nature 
in her quiet, restful moods. It is healthy and even invigor- 
ating in its general tone. There are in fact two Cowpers : 
the Cowper of religious despair and the genial, charming 
Cowper, full of charming vivacity and sane delights in nature 
and society. 

The Task " cannot boast a regular plan." So he wrote 
Unwin, Oct. 10, 1784, adding, "It may yet boast that 
the reflections are naturally suggested always by the preced- 
ing passage." This has been called in question, and with 
good reason. The connection between the reflections and 
the foregoing passage is not always readily apparent to the 
reader. The lack of " regular plan " in the poem, as in the 
case of Thomson's Seasons, is one of its charms, and does 
not destroy the unity of aim running through its six books. 
"The whole," said Cowper, "has one tendency: to discour- 
age the modern enthusiasm after a London life and to 
recommend rural ease and leisure as friendly to the cause of 
piety and virtue." From this he excepted The Winter Morn- 
ing Walk, Book V, as "of rather a political aspect," which 



lii INTR OD UC TION. 

after its fascinating description in the first two hundred lines 
certainly justifies Cowper's exception. The aim of the poem, 
as thus defined by the author, is identical with that of 
Retirement, written, it will be remembered, just before The 
Task. The earlier poem seems but a study for The Task. 
Both poems alike sing the arts 

That leave no stain upon the wing of Time. 

The Task is a mosaic of descriptive, satirical, and didac- 
tic poetry ; perhaps it were better to say, instead of didactic 
poetry, poetry of reflection and sentiment. For critical pur- 
poses, the different kinds may be considered apart, but in 
the poem itself they are inwoven and intermingled by no 
rule, with no mechanical device, and if they are not con- 
nected by direct suggestion with preceding thoughts, they 
are not so forced as to seem lugged in. 

Cowper's descriptions of natural scenery and objects in 
The Task unite all the best elements of descriptive poetry. 
They are the outflow of a personal affection for every nat- 
ural object in the range of his walks. This is clearly trace- 
able in the description of the scenery about Olney, which in 
the first book immediately follows his account of the evolu- 
tion of the Sofa (line 150 et seq.) : 

Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, 
And that my raptures are not conjured up 
To serve occasions of poetic pomp. 

He said of his descriptions in a letter to Unwin, Oct. 
10, 1784: " They are all from nature; not one of them second- 
handed." He observed minutely, and it is the closeness and 
accuracy of detail which give their charm, in striking con- 
trast with the mechanical and distant allusions to nature in 
the poetry of Pope and his school. Miss Mitford, in Our 
Village?- speaking of English landscape, says : " Cowper has 

1 Vol. i, pp. 54, 55. 



INTR 01) UC TION. lui 

described it for me. How perpetually, as we walk in the 
country, his vivid pictures recur to the memory. Here is his 
Common and mine ": 

The common, overgrown with fern, and rough 
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deformed, 
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom, 
And decks itself with ornaments of gold, 
Yields no unpleasing ramble ; there the turf 
Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs 
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense 
With luxury of unexpected sweets. 

Sainte-Beuve has called attention to another quality in the 
descriptive poetry of Cowper. Referring to the description 
of the "slow-winding Ouse," he says: 1 " Cowper has known 
how to harmonize the two orders of qualities, the delicacy 
and relief of every detail (I should even say floridness in 
some points), and the gradation and aerial vanishing of the 
perspective. His landscape might be copied with the pencil." 
The distinguished French critic or his translator is at fault, 
however, in ascribing anything like "floridness" to Cowper's 
descriptions. From this fault they are assuredly free. 

In all his poetry of nature, Cowper feels and sings the 
power resident in her scenes and processes to quiet the 
feverous strife and corroding fret of the human soul. This 
is the keynote of his Retirement. And the same view per- 
vades The Task : 

Scenes that soothed 
Or charmed me young, no longer young, I find 
Still soothing and of power to charm me still. 

Those sanative, quieting influences, "balm of hurt minds," 

which did so much for Wordsworth, did quite as much for 

the distressed and darkened spirit of William Cowper. So 

also Cowper laid aside all that conventional poetic diction 

1 English Portraits, p. 215. 



liv INTRODUCTION. 

which had become so hackneyed, and he sang of nature in 
simple language. High-flown epithets are seldom or never 
found. There is a homely touch here and there, which, not 
unbefitting his theme, is in exact keeping with the simple 
landscape he is describing. And this may fairly be claimed 
for Cowper, that he has anticipated Wordsworth in turning 
to the lowly and the familiar in life and nature as furnishing 
the poet with some of his choicest material. Cowper's pic- 
ture of crazy Kate, Book I, lines 534-556, antedates Words- 
worth's Idiot Boy, and that of the gypsies, lines 557-590, 
Peter Bell. 

This element in Cowper is well described by Taine : 1 
" We know from him that we need no longer go to Greece, 
Rome, to the palaces, heroes and academicians, to search 
for poetic objects. They are quite near us. If we see them 
not, it is because we do not know where to look for them : 
the fault is in our eye, not in the things. We shall find 
poetry, if we wish, at our fireside, and amongst the beds of 
our kitchen gardens." 

But in one respect there is the widest difference between 
the poetry of nature in Cowper and that in Wordsworth. To 
Cowper, nature was but a vast, complicated, wonderful 
mechanism; so complicated and so vast as to demand God 
for its author, and manifesting the attributes of a Creator in 
all its operations. He never came to that view for which 
Wordsworth was charged with pantheism, which is so dis- 
tinctly Wordsworthian and so rich also in poetic results, the 
view which the lines on Tintern Abbey express so finely, — that 
Nature is a living Being, the source and center of one mighty 
Life received from God and mysteriously one with Him. 

Descriptive poetry by no means makes the chief element 
in the six books of The Task. There are lengthened 
descriptive passages in Book I, lines 159-366, in Book IV, 
1 English Literature, Am. ed., vol. ii, p. 246. 



INTR OD UC TIOJY. 1 V 

lines 1-190, in Book V, lines 1-175, anc ^ Book VI, lines 
57-197. These are all noteworthy, but they are relatively a 
small portion of the whole. Even smaller is the satirical 
element. Cowper was still under the spell of that poetic 
impulse which gave birth to his first volume when he began 
The Task. To some extent at first he continued the satiric 
strain. But whether he felt that the satiric vein was out of 
keeping with the new theme, or whether he came to know 
that he was least effective when he essayed satire, he soon 
dropped it. In Book I, The Sofa, line 472 et seq., we have 
a satirical portrait of 

The paralytic who can hold her cards 
But cannot play them; 

in Book II, The Time- Piece, following the picture of the true 
" legate of the skies," and in effective contrast, is that of the 
affected, declaiming parson, who 

Sells accent, tone, 
And emphasis in score, and gives to prayer 
The adagio and andante it demands, 

and which is followed by a companion portrait of the cleri- 
cal exquisite with 

Start theatric, practiced at the glass, 

lines 440-454. 

If to these be added his satirical picture of a fashionable 
Rout, lines 529-660, the principal satiric efforts in The Task 
have been named. In the later books they disappear, or 
give place to invective. 

The element of reflective poetry is the chief strain in The 
Task. A glance at the argument which Cowper prefixed to 
the different books will show how largely this predominates. 
The significance of this is that in these parts of the poem is 
found what has been well termed Cowper's " deep, tender, 



1 vi INTR OD UC TION. 

universal human-heartedness." Sometimes it is seen in 
the tender picture of a crazed wanderer, sometimes in the 
humane feeling toward a band of gypsies. Again it swells 
in indignant outbursts at human oppression, "man's inhu- 
manity to man," or draws those charming scenes of domestic 
happiness, the blessed quietude of the hearthstone, the sanc- 
tity of home life, such as English poetry never sang before, 
and which Burns was later in his Cotter's Saturday Night to 
express for Scotland. " In Cowper, the poetry of human 
wrong begins that long, long cry against oppression and 
evil done to man, against the political, moral or priestly 
tyrant." 1 His passion for liberty finds full-throated voice in 
The Winter Morning Walk, Book V. His outcry against 
human slavery in The Time-Piece, Book II, lines 20-47, is 
the precursor of the similar strains in Longfellow and Whit- 
tier and Lowell. Indeed, Cowper's poetry, in its deep and 
tender sympathy with human woes and sufferings, is the 
harbinger of that hallowed, beautiful service which the Vic- 
torian Literature has rendered and is rendering to our com- 
mon humanity. 

By two well-known critics, Sainte-Beuve and Leslie 
Stephen, Cowper, in his poetic treatment of town and 
country, has been compared to Rousseau. In Retirement, 
as well as in The Task, he has given utterance to the view 
that man may find in nature what is morally sanative, what 
will correct the evils so rife in city life. His creed is 
expressed in the well-known line : 

God made the country and man made the town. 

But here all resemblance between the French sentimentalist 
and the recluse of Olney ends. 

The charm of The Task undoubtedly lies in its varied 
types of poetry, so skillfully blended. What felicities of 

1 Stopford Brooke, Theology of English Poetry, p. 56. 



INTRODUCTION. lvii 

description, what exquisite bits of domestic poetry, what 
delightful personal allusions, what noble encomiums on lib- 
erty, what stirring outbursts against human cruelty and 
oppression, — all mingled very much as Nature makes up her 
landscapes, in grave and gay, somber and bright, in the 
varieties of contrast or of harmony ! Never was didactic 
poetry more suffused with or sweetened by poetic sensibility. 
Never was poetry of sentiment more nobly and touchingly 
sung. Only one sentiment is left unsung in the poetry of 
Cowper. It is that of love. When Cowper had buried his 
hopeless attachment to Theodora Cowper, that theme was 
never more to be touched. 

Some of the minor poems of Cowper are certainly to be 
classed with his best poetic work in The 'Task. Not only do 
these shorter poetic flights show a high poetic excellence, 
but they make up a very considerable amount of his poetry. 
They were, many of them, dashed off in a heat, the fruit of 
some incident in his daily walk, or of some item read in the 
newspaper, or of some personal experience. They are what 
are called " occasional " poems, and they illustrate the truth 
that some of our best poetry comes to its birth in just this 
way. Furthermore, it will be found that these minor poems 
of Cowper reflect two sides of his nature: that of his genial, 
gentle, graceful humor, and that of affectionate, pathetic sen- 
sibility. In him, as in other English poets, they combine 
with equal naturalness and effect. It is a pity that Cowper 
undervalued his gift of humor, and that his friends did not 
make more of it. "Alas! " he said, "what can I do with 
my wit ? I have not enough to do great things with, and 
these little things are so fugitive that while a man catches 
at the subject, he is only filling his hands with smoke." 
He wrote this to a friend on sending, him the fable of The 
Nightingale and Glow- Worm. It is, however, in the graceful, 
sprightly humor of such fables as this, or in the John Gilpin, 



lviii INTRODUCTION. 

with its freer handling, its heartier sense of the ludicrous, 
shown in a hundred touches describing that memorable ride, 
much more than in the more labored satirical strokes of The 
Progress of Error, Truth, Table-Talk, and their congeners, that 
we can take the true measure of Cowper's humor. In the 
former it has a spontaneity, a freshness, often a human-heart- 
edness which belong to the best type of humor. And yet 
Cowper wrote to Unwin, Nov. 17, 1782 : " The most ludicrous 
lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, 
and but for that saddest mood would never have been written 
at all." Again, he wrote to Lady Hesketh, Dec. 11, 1786 : 
" The grinners at John Gilpin little dream what the author 
sometimes suffers. How I hated myself yesterday for 
having ever written it." 

Among Cowper's minor poems, those in serious vein will 
be found to have every quality of his best poetry. Delicacy 
of sensibility, simplicity and genuineness of pathos, finished 
grace of expression are seen in them all. It shows Cowper's 
versatility of gifts that his dirge on The Loss of the Royal 
George is in its way as perfect as his John Gilpin. Cowper 
loved the ballad. He wrote to Unwin, Aug. 4, 1783 : "It 
is a sort of composition I was ever fond of, and if graver 
matters had not called me another way, should have addicted 
myself to it more than any other. I inherit a taste for it from 
my father." The Lines on Receipt of My Mother's Picture out 
of Norfolk have long held high place in our elegiac poetry. 
Cowper said of them to Lady Hesketh : " I wrote them not 
without tears," and they have seldom been read without tears. 
Much of their power undoubtedly lies in the reflection they 
convey of his own forlorn, despairing state. The absence 
of anything like a false note, the presence in them of every 
sweet and tender reminiscence of an early home, the quiet 
beauty of the verse in which all this is expressed, make this 
poem one of the best loved of Cowper's poems. On his 



INTR 01) UC TION. lix 

lines To Mary, Sainte-Beuve, speaking of them as a " tender 
and incomparable lament," makes the following comment : " It 
is the confidence in this Mary [the Virgin Mary], all merci- 
ful and so powerful with her Son, that was wanting to Cow- 
per. This devotion moreover, if his heart could have yielded 
to it, would have succoured and perhaps possessed it." This 
is, however, a mistaken judgment. Cowper's insanity was 
too deep seated for any such cure. 

Minor poems are often such only in length. They often 
embody as pure and as high a poetic achievement as the 
principal and longer poems. The flight is briefer, but it is 
taken through as serene and lofty a region. Such is the case 
with Cowper's minor poems. The difference between The 
Task and the Lines on the Receipt of My Mother's Picture or 
Yardley Oak is more in quantity than quality. Had Cowper 
never written The Task, he would have been remembered for 
his shorter pieces. 

Cowper's translations make up the largest part of his 
poetical work. He ranged in these over a wide field. Vin- 
cent Bourne, Madame Guyon, the Latin and Italian poems 
of Milton, passages from the Latin and Greek classics and 
Homer, all occupied him as a translator. He is most suc- 
cessful in his rendering of the graceful efforts of his friend 
Vincent Bourne and of the hymns of Madame Guyon. 
With both these authors he was in close sympathy. It was 
the Homer which absorbed him most, to which he gave 
years of his time, and from which he expected most fame. 
In this, however, he was disappointed. From the first it was 
accorded no success. As Mr. Matthew Arnold has pointed 
out, Cowper made two mistakes, either of which would have 
been fatal. The first was in supposing that the elaborate 
and involved blank verse of Milton could reproduce the 
rapidity of Homer; the other in thinking that "adhering 
closely to the original" in point of matter can possibly 



lx INTR OD UC TION. 

answer when the manner is so utterly mistaken. To quote 
Mr. Arnold's words: " Between Cowper and Homer there is 
interposed the mist of Cowper's elaborate Miltonic manner, 
entirely alien to the flowing rapidity of Homer." 

Cowper's friends sought to dissuade him from the attempt 
to translate Homer and to undertake another long poem like 
The Task. Two subjects were suggested, The Mediterranean 
and The Four Ages. He was inclined to attempt the latter. 
It would, however, have been a mistake. When his success 
in The Task is considered, it will be found owing largely to 
the personal elements entering into it. It is the expression 
of his life at Olney. There is comparatively little outside of 
this. It has been said, with some degree of truth, that he 
was too much of a recluse to be a successful satirist. The 
same would hold of any other type of poetry involving a 
lengthened treatment. He might have written more of the 
shorter poems, which are so captivating. His Yardley Oak 
and Castaway show that in producing these his hands lost 
none of their cunning up to the last. We might well have 
spared the Homer for a few more such gems as The Rose, 
or the dirge on The Loss of the Royal George. 

Cowper's fame in English literature rests on his letters as 
well as on his poetry. In this field he has few rivals and 
no superiors. The correspondence begun with his friend 
Joseph Hill in 1765 lasted well-nigh through his career. It 
grows infrequent in the terrible depression of his closing 
years. His correspondents are comparatively few in number, 
and all of them his intimate friends or relatives. He never 
seems to have come into any close contact with men of 
letters in England. If we are asked what is the charm of 
these letters, a partial reply would be, the easy, graceful 
English in which they are written, models of an epistolary 
style; the revelation they give of his inward and outward 
life at Olney and Weston ; the human interest they show in all 



INTR OD UC TION. Ixi 

that surrounded him there, or as he " peeped from these loop- 
holes of retreat " at the great, outlying world ; and the 
delicious humor that now and again lives in them. For his 
" whisking wit " finds play in these, as in his " minor " 
poems. Perhaps Sainte-Beuve's estimate 1 is as nearly satis- 
factory as any analysis can be of a charm it is next to 
impossible to analyze. " The charm of Cowper's corre- 
spondence consists in the succession of images, of thoughts, 
and of shades of meaning unfolded with unvarying vivacity 
but in an equable and peaceful course. In his letters we 
can best apprehend the true sources of his poetry, of the 
true domestic poetry of private life ; bantering not devoid of 
affection, a familiarity which disdains nothing which is inter- 
esting as being too lowly and too minute, but alongside of 
them elevation, or rather profundity. Nor let us forget the 
irony, the malice (?), a delicate and easy raillery." 

1 English Portraits, p. 191. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



It need scarcely be said that the bibliography of Cowper 
is extensive, and that no attempt is made here to give any 
complete view. It seemed desirable to give the list of Cow- 
per's publications in chronological order. Some of his minor 
poems appeared from time to time in the Gentleman 's Maga- 
zine. These, however, are not noted here. 

Cowper's poems have appeared in many editions. Only a 
few, however, have any marked critical excellence. Southey's 
edition of the collected works has long held the chief place. 
His life of the poet, as well as his collection of Cowper's 
letters, has established its superiority. The Globe edition 
of the Poetical Works, with its excellent introduction by the 
Reverend William Benham, is an invaluable aid to the study 
of Cowper. Many points are elucidated in the notes to 
Selections from the Poetry of Cowper, by the Reverend Henry 
Thomas Griffith, in the Clarendon Press Series. 

Cowper's correspondence is, however, the best guide to 
any understanding or appreciation of his poetry. His letters 
unfold his genius in all its peculiarities and in those of 
its environment. It is good to know that a complete col- 
lection of these is in preparation by Mr. Thomas Wright, 
principal of the Cowper School at Olney, Cowper's home. 
When published, it will contain four hundred letters or por- 
tions of letters not found in Southey's edition. 

Critical estimates of Cowper are numerous. They are 
found mostly in the periodicals, to which Poole's Index fur- 
nishes a ready clew. A few others are mentioned here 
which embody a true critical insight. 



lxiv BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



WORKS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR PUBLICATION. 

1754-6. Articles in the Connoisseur, Nos. in, 115, 134, 139. 

1757-9. The Works of Horace in English Verse. By several 
hands. 2 vols. R. & J. Dodsley, London. The fifth and 
ninth Satires of the First Book, translated by Cowper. 

1779. Olney Hymns. In three books. By John Newton and 
William Cowper. London, 1779. 12 . 

1 78 1. Anti-Thelyphthora : a tale in verse. By William Cowper. 
London, 1781. 4 . 

1782. Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. 
Printed for J. Johnson, London, No. 72, St. Paul's Church 
Yard, 1782. 

1 783. John Gilpin. First appeared in the Public Advertiser. 

1784. "Unnoticed Properties of the Hare." Article in Gentle- 
mau's Magazine, pp. 412-414. Signed W. C. 

1785. The Task : a poem in six books. By William Cowper, of 
the Inner Temple, Esq. To which are added by the same, 
author : An Epistle to Joseph Hill, Esq. ; Tirocinium, or a 
Review of Schools ; and the History of John Gilpin. 

1785. "A Lady's Remarks on Pope's Homer." Paper in Gen- 
tlemaii's Magazine, August, 1785. pp. 610-613. Signed 
Alethes. 

1789. Review of Glover's Athenaid. Analytical Review, Febru- 
ary, 1789. 

1 791. Homer. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, translated 
into English blank verse, by William Cowper. The Battle 
of the Frogs and Mice. Translated into English blank 
verse by the same hand. 2 vols. Printed for J. Johnson, 
London, 1791. 4 . 

1792. Christodulus, pseud. The Power of Grace, illustrated, 
in six letters. . . . Translated from the Latin by William 
Cowper. London, 1 792. 8°. 

1798. Poems. I. On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture. 
II. The Dog and the Water Lily. London, 1798. 8°. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. lxv 

1 80 1. Poems, translated from the French of Madame de La Mothe 
Guion. . . . To which are added some original poems, etc. 
Edited by W. Bull. Newport-Pagnel, 1801. 12 . 

1802. Adelphi. A sketch of the character, and an account of 
the last illness of the late . . . John Cowper. Written by . . . 
William Cowper. Faithfully transcribed from his original 
manuscript by J. Newton. London, 1802'. 12°. 

1803-4. The Life and Posthumous Writings [chiefly Letters] of 
William Cowper. With an introductory letter to . . . Earl 
Cowper. By W. Hayley. 3 vols. Chichester, 1803-4. 4 . 

1808. Fragment of a Commentary on Paradise Lost. Milton, J. 
Latin and Italian Poems. Translated . . . by . . . William 
Cowper. Printed by J. Seagrave, Chichester, for J. Johnson, 
etc., London, 1808. 4 . 

18 10. Andreini, G. B. Adam : a sacred drama. Translated from 
the Italian of G. B. Andreini by William Cowper. Printed 
by W. Mason, Chichester, for J. Johnson and Co., London, 
1810. 8°. 

1825. Poems : the early productions of William Cowper, now 
first published. With anecdotes of the poet, collected from 
letters of Lady Hesketh. [Edited by J. Croft] London, 
1825. 12°. 

II. 

COLLECTED WORKS: LIFE AND LETTERS. 

'The works of the late William Cowper. [Edited by J. Newton.] 
10 vols. London, 181 7. 12 . 

The Life and Posthumous Writings [chiefly Letters] of William 
Cowper. By W. Hayley. New and enlarged edition. 4 vols. 
J. Seagrave, Chichester, 1806. 8°. 

Supplementary Pages to the Life of Cowper, containing the addi- 
tions made to that work on reprinting it in octavo. By W. 
Hayley. Chichester, 1806. 4 . 

Works of William Cowper : His Life and Letters, by W. Hayley, 
now first completed by the introduction of Cowper's private 
correspondence. Edited by T. S. Grimshawe. [With an 



lxvi BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Essay on the Genius and Poetry of Cowper by J. W. Cun- 
ningham.] 8 vols. London, 1835. 8°. 

The Works of William Cowper. Comprising his Poems, Corre- 
spondence, and Translations. With a life of the author, by 
the editor, R. Southey. 15 vols. Baldwin & Cradock, Lon- 
don, 1836-37. 12°. 

Miscellaneous Works. With a life and notes by J. S. Memes. 
3 vols. Edinburgh, 1834. 8°. 

The Poetical Works of William Cowper. (Memoir of Cowper 
by T. Mitford.) 3 vols. 1830-31. Aldine Edition of the 
British Poets. 

The Poetical Works of William Cowper. Edited by the Rev. H. F. 
Cary ; with a biographical notice of the author. London, 1839. 

Poems. Edited by R. Bell. 3 vols. 1854. 

The Poetical Works of William Cowper. Edited, with notes and 
biographical introduction, by William Benham. The Globe 
Edition. 1870. 

Poems. Edited by H. T. Griffith. Oxford, 1874. 2 vols. Clar- 
endon Press Series. 

Poems. Edited, with a critical memoir, by W. M. Rossetti. Illus- 
trated by T. Seccombe. London, Edinburgh [printed 1872]. 8°. 

Milton's Earlier Poems, including the translations by William 
Cowper of those written in Latin and Italian. [With an 
introduction by Henry Morley.] pp. 192. 1886. Cassell's 
National Library. Vol. xxxiv. 1886, etc. 8°. 

Concordance to Poetical Works of William Cowper, by J. Neve. 
1887. 8°. 

The Life and Letters of William Cowper, with remarks of episto- 
lary writers. By W. Hayley. A new edition. 4 vols. Chich- 
ester, 1809. 8°. 

The Life and Works of William Cowper. Revised, arranged, and 
edited by ... T. S. Grimshawe. . . . With an Essay on the 
Genius and Poetry of Cowper. By ... J. W. Cunningham. . . . 

Private Correspondence of William Cowper, with several of his 
most intimate friends, now first published from the originals 
in the possession of [and edited by] J. Johnson. 2 vols. 
London, 1824. 8°. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. lxvii 

The Autobiography of Cowper : or an account of the most inter- 
esting part of his life. Written by himself. To which is 
added some poems copied from MS. London, Bedford, 
[printed] 1835. 8°. 

The Life of William Cowper, Esq., compiled from his correspond- 
ence, etc. By T. Taylor. 1833. 8°. 

The Life of William Cowper, with selections from his correspond- 
ence. By R. B. Seeley. London, 1855. 8°. 

The Letters of William Cowper. Edited by J. S. Memes. Glas- 
gow [1 861]. 12°. 

Letters of William Cowper. Edited, with introduction, by . . . W. 
Benham. pp. xxiii, 316. Macmillan & Co., London, Edin- 
burgh, printed 1884. 8°. 

Life of Cowper. By Thomas Wright, principal of Cowper School, 
Olney, and author of The Town of Cowper. 



III. 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESTIMATES. 

Taine's English Literature. American Edition. Vol. ii. pp. 243- 
247. 

Sainte-Beuve's Causeries du Lundi. Vol. ix (1854). Article on 
Cowper. Translated in English Portraits, pp. 164-239. 

Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England in Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. Vol. i. pp. 13-82. 

Rev. Stopford A. Brooke's Theology in the English Poets. 

Augustine Birrell's Res Judicatae. Article on Cowper. pp. 84- 
116. 

Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library. Vol. i. Cowper and Rous- 
seau, pp. 93-138. 

Walter Bagehot's Literary Studies. Vol. i. Cowper. pp. 327-344. 

Introductory Essay to Cowper's Poems, by James Montgomery. 
Glasgow, 1834. 

Life of Cowper, in English Men of Letters, by Goldwin Smith. 

Introductory Note to Cowper in Ward's English Poets, by the 
Editor. Vol. iii. 



■te? 



Co* 



Wlfwfck "Kilwick's Echoing Wood. 
W O-i) d Cowper >The Needless Alarm 





Weston 
lOyeorstheres 
of Cowper 



*reoces Church 

Monuments to the Hiaq 
Family ond other friends 
of Cowper 



(From Wright's " Town of Cowper," by permission. 
Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Publishers.) 



MAP OF THE TOWN 




Campers favourite walks war 
A. That described in Task. Book I thrduah the Piqht/e. and thence by nay of 

"Yon Cminence'-'lhe Weedy Brook", the 2"" Spinney, the Chestnut Avenue. 

The A/care, and the Avenue of Lime Trees to rhe Wilderness 

To Chfton Noll by the footpath 
C To the Poplar Field at Lavendon Mill by road 
D. To the -tree now coljed Carpers Oak upon winch he wrote the wellknown 

poem His journeys to the Oak were mode when he lived at Weston 



)LNEY AND SUBURBS. 



SELECTIONS FROM COWPER, 



THE TASK. 



BOOK I. — THE SOFA. 

Argument. — Historical deduction of seats, from the stool to the sofa — A 
schoolboy's ramble — A walk in the country — The scene described — 
Rural sounds as well as sights delightful — Another walk — Mistake 
concerning the charms of solitude corrected — Colonnades commenced 

— Alcove, and the view from it — The wilderness — The grove — The 
thresher — The necessity and the benefits of exercise — The works of nature 
superior to, and in some instances inimitable by, art — The wearisomeness 
of what is commonly called a life of pleasure — Change of scene sometimes 
expedient — A common described, and the character of crazy Kate intro- 
duced — Gipsies — The blessings of civilized life — That state most favour- 
able to virtue — The South Sea islanders compassionated, but chiefly Omai 

— His present state of mind supposed — Civilized life friendly to virtue, 
but not great cities — Great cities, and London in particular, allowed 
their due praise, but censured — Fete champetre — The book concludes 
with a reflection on the effects of dissipation and effeminacy upon our 
public measures. 

I sing the Sofa. I who lately sang 
Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touched with awe 
The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand 
Escaped with pain from that adventurous flight, 
Now seek repose upon an humbler theme ; 5 

The theme though humble, yet august and proud 
The occasion — for the Fair commands the song. 
Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use, 
Save their own painted skins, our sires had none. 
As yet black breeches were not, satin smooth, 10 



SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Or velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile : 

The hardy chief, upon the rugged rock 

Washed by the sea, or on the gravelly bank 

Thrown up by wintry torrents roaring loud, 

Fearless of wrong, reposed his weary strength. 15 

Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next 

The birthday of Invention, weak at first, 

Dull in design, and clumsy to perform. 

Joint-stools were then created ; on three legs 

Upborne they stood : — three legs upholding firm 20 

A massy slab, in fashion square or round. 

On such a Stool immortal Alfred sat, 

And swayed the sceptre of his infant realms ; 

And such in ancient halls and mansions drear 

May still be seen, but perforated sore 25 

And drilled in holes the solid oak is found, 

By worms voracious eating through and through. 

At length a generation more refined 
Improved the simple plan ; made three legs four, 
Gave them a twisted form vermicular, 3° 

And o'er the seat, with plenteous wadding stuffed, 
Induced a splendid cover, green and blue, 
Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought 
And woven close, or needlework sublime. 
There might ye see the peony spread wide, 35 

The full-blown rose, the shepherd and his lass, 
Lap-dog and lambkin with black staring eyes, 
And parrots with twin cherries in their beak. 

Now came the cane from India, smooth and bright 
With Nature's varnish, severed into stripes 40 

That interlaced each other, these supplied 
Of texture firm a lattice-work, that braced 
The new machine, and it became a Chair. 
But restless was the chair : the back erect 



THE TASK. 3 

Distressed the weary loins, that felt no ease ; 45 

The slippery seat betrayed the sliding part 

That pressed it, and the feet hung dangling down, 

Anxious in vain to find the distant floor. 

These for the rich ; the rest, whom fate had placed 

In modest mediocrity, content 5° 

With base materials, sat on well-tanned hides 

Obdurate and unyielding, glassy smooth, 

With here and there a tuft of crimson yarn, 

Or scarlet crewel in the cushion fixed : 

If cushion might be called what harder seemed 55 

Than the firm oak of which the frame was formed. 

No want of timber then was felt or feared 

In Albion's happy isle. The lumber stood 

Ponderous, and fixed by its own massy weight. 

But elbows still were wanting ; these, some say, 6o 

An alderman of Cripplegate contrived, 

And some ascribe the invention to a priest 

Burly and big, and studious of his ease. 

But rude at first, and not with easy slope 

Receding wide, they pressed against the ribs, 65 

And bruised the side, and elevated high 

Taught the raised shoulders to invade the ears. 

Long time elapsed or e'er our rugged sires 

Complained, though incommodiously pent in, 

And ill at ease behind. The ladies first 7° 

'Gan murmur, as became the softer sex. 

Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased 

Than when employed to accommodate the fair, 

Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devised 

The soft Settee ; one elbow at each end, 75 

And in the midst an elbow, it received, 

United yet divided, twain at once. 

So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne ; 



SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And so two citizens who take the air 

Close packed and smiling, in a chaise and one. 80 

But relaxation of the languid frame, 

By soft recumbency of outstretched limbs, 

Was bliss reserved for happier days ; so slow 

The growth of what is excellent, so hard 

To attain perfection in this nether world. 85 

Thus first Necessity invented Stools, 

Convenience next suggested Elbow-chairs, 

And Luxury the accomplished Sofa last. 

The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, 
Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he 9° 

Who quits the coach-box at the midnight hour 
To sleep within the carriage more secure, 
His legs depending at the open door. 
Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk, 
The tedious rector drawling o'er his head, 95 

And sweet the clerk below : but neither sleep 
Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead, 
Nor his who quits the box at midnight hour 
To slumber in the carriage more secure, 
Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk, 100 

Nor yet the dozings of the clerk, are sweet, 
Compared with the repose the Sofa yields. 

Oh ! may I live exempted (while I live 
Guiltless of pampered appetite obscene) 
From pangs arthritic that infest the toe 105 

Of libertine excess. The Sofa suits 
The gouty limb, 'tis true ; but gouty limb, 
Though on a Sofa, may I never feel : 
For I have loved the rural walk through lanes 
Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nibbling sheep "o 
And skirted thick with intertexture firm 
Of thorny boughs ; have loved the rural walk 



THE TASK. 5 

O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' brink, 

E'er since a truant boy I passed my bounds 

To enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames; 115 

And still remember, nor without regret, 

Of hours that sorrow since has much endeared, 

How oft, my slice of pocket store consumed, 

Still hungering, penniless and far from home, 

I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws, 120 

Or blushing crabs, or berries that emboss 

The bramble, black as jet, or sloes austere. 

Hard fare ! but such as boyish appetite 

Disdains not, nor the palate undepraved 

By culinary arts, unsavoury deems. 125 

No Sofa then awaited my return, 

Nor Sofa then I needed. Youth repairs 

His wasted spirits quickly, by long toil 

Incurring short fatigue ; and though our years, 

As life declines, speed rapidly away, 13° 

And not a year but pilfers as he goes 

Some youthful grace that age would gladly keep, 

A tooth or auburn lock, and by degrees 

Their length and colour from the locks they spare, 

The elastic spring of an unwearied foot 135 

That mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the fence, 

That play of lungs, inhaling and again 

Respiring freely the fresh air, that makes 

Swift pace or steep ascent no toil to me, 

Mine have not pilfered yet ; nor yet impaired 14° 

My relish of fair prospect : scenes that soothed 

.Or charmed me young, no longer young, I find 

Still soothing and of power to charm me still. 

And witness, dear companion of my walks, 

Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive 145 

Fast locked in mine, with pleasure such as love, 



SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Confirmed by long experience of thy worth 

And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire, 

Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long. 

Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, 15° 

And that my raptures are not conjured up 

To serve occasions of poetic pomp, 

But genuine, and art partner of them all. 

How oft upon yon eminence our pace 

Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne 155 

The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, 

While admiration feeding at the eye, 

And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene. 

Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned 

The distant plough slow moving, and beside 160 

His labouring team, that swerved not from the track, 

The sturdy swain diminished to a boy. 

Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain 

Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er, 

Conducts the eye along his sinuous course 165 

Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, 

Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms, 

That screen the herdsman's solitary hut ; 

While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, 

That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, 170 

The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; 

Displaying on its varied side the grace 

Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, 

Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells 

Just undulates upon the listening ear ; 175 

Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote. 

Scenes must be beautiful which, daily viewed, 

Please daily, and whose novelty survives 

Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years : 

Praise justly due to those that I describe. 180 



THE TASK. 7 

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds 
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore 
The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds, 
That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood 
Of ancient growth, make music not unlike 185 

The dash of Ocean on his winding shore, 
And lull the spirit while they fill the mind ; 
Unnumbered branches waving in the blast, 
And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once. 
Nor less composure waits upon the roar 19° 

Of distant floods, or on the softer voice 
Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip 
Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall 
Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length 
In matted grass, that with a livelier green 195 

Betrays the secret of their silent course. 
Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, 
But animated nature sweeter still, 
To soothe and satisfy the human ear. 
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 200 

The livelong night : nor these alone, whose notes 
Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, 
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime 
In still repeated circles, screaming loud ; 
The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl 205 

That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. 
Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, 
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 
And only there, please highly for their sake. 

Peace to the artist, whose ingenious thought 210 

Devised the weather-house, that useful toy ! 
Fearless of humid air and gathering rains 
Forth steps the man, — an emblem of myself, — 
More delicate, his timorous mate retires. 



SELECTIOXS FROM COWPER. 

When Winter soaks the fields, and female feet, 215 

Too weak to struggle with tenacious clay, 

Or ford the rivulets, are best at home, 

The task of new discoveries falls on me. 

At such a season, and with such a charge, 

Once went I forth, and found, till then unknown, 220 

A cottage, whither oft we since repair : 

'Tis perched upon the green-hill top. but close 

Environed with a ring of branching elms 

That overhang the thatch, itself unseen, 

Peeps at the vale below ; so thick beset 225 

With foliage of such dark redundant growth, 

I called the low-roofed lodge the Feasant's JYest. 

And hidden as it is. and far remote 

From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear 

In village or in town, the bay of curs 230 

Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels, 

And infants clamorous whether pleased or pained, 

Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine. 

Here. I have said, at least I should possess 

The poet's treasure, silence, and indulge 235 

The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure. 

Vain thought ! the dweller in that still retreat 

Dearly obtains the refuge it affords. 

Its elevated site forbids the wretch 

To drink sweet waters of the crystal well : 240 

He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch. 

And heavy-laden brings his beverage home, 

Far-fetched and little worth : nor seldom waits, 

Dependent on the baker's punctual call, 

To hear his creaking panniers at the door, 245 

Angry and sad. and his last crust consumed. 

So farewell envy of the Peasant's Xest, 

If solitude make scant the means of life, 



THE TASK. 9 

Society for me ! — Thou seeming sweet, 

Be still a pleasing object in my view, 250 

My visit still, but never mine, abode. 

Not distant far, a length of colonnade 
Invites us : monument of ancient taste, 
Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate. 
Our fathers knew the value of a screen 255 

From sultry suns, and in their shaded walks 
And long protracted bowers enjoyed at noon 
The gloom and coolness of declining day. 
We bear our shades about us ; self-deprived 
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, 260 

And range an Indian waste without a tree. 
Thanks to Benevolus — he spares me yet 
These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, 
And, though himself so polished, still reprieves 
The obsolete prolixity of shade. 265 

Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast) 
A sudden steep, upon a rustic bridge, 
We pass a gulf, in which the willows dip 
Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink. 
Hence, ankle-deep in moss and flowery thyme, 270 

We mount again, and feel at every step 
Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft, 
Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil. 
He, not unlike the great ones of mankind, 
Disfigures earth, and, plotting in the dark, 275 

Toils much to earn a monumental pile, 
That may record the mischiefs he has done. 

The summit gained, behold the proud alcove 
That crowns it ! yet not all its pride secures 
The grand retreat from injuries impressed 280 

By rural carvers, who with knives deface 
The panels, leaving an obscure, rude name, 



10 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

In characters uncouth, and spelt amiss. 

So strong the zeal to immortalize himself 

Beats in the breast of man, that even a few, 285 

Few transient years, won from the abyss abhorred 

Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize, 

And even to a clown. Now roves the eye, 

And posted on this speculative height 

Exults in its command. The sheepfold here 290 

Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe. 

At first, progressive as a stream, they seek 

The middle field ; but scattered by degrees, 

Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land. 

There from the sunburnt hayfield, homeward creeps 295 

The loaded wain, while, lightened of its charge, 

The wain that meets it passes swiftly by, 

The boorish driver leaning o'er his team 

Vociferous, and impatient of delay. 

Nor less attractive is the woodland scene, 3°° 

Diversified with trees of every growth, 

Alike yet various. Here the grey smooth trunks 

Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine, 

Within the twilight of their distant shades ; 

There lost behind a rising ground, the wood 3°5 

Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs. 

No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 

Though each its hue peculiar : paler some, 

And of a wannish grey ; the willow such, 

And poplar that with silver lines his leaf, 3 10 

And ash far stretching his umbrageous arm ; 

Of deeper green the elm ; and deeper still, 

Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak. 

Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun, 

The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 3*5 

Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 



THE TASK. 11 

Diffusing odours : nor unnoted pass 

The sycamore, capricious in attire, 

Now green, now tawny, and ere autumn yet 

Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright. 3 2 ° 

O'er these, but far beyond (a spacious map 

Of hill and valley interposed between), 

The Ouse, dividing the well-watered land, 

Now glitters in the sun, and now retires, 

As bashful, yet impatient to be seen. 325 

Hence the declivity is sharp and short, 
And such the re-ascent : between them weeps 
A little naiad her impoverished urn 
All summer long, which winter fills again. 
The folded gates would bar my progress now, 33° 

But that the lord of this enclosed demesne, 
Communicative of the good he owns, 
Admits me to a share ; the guiltless eye 
Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys. 
Refreshing change ! where now the blazing sun ? 335 
By short transition we have lost his glare, 
And stepped at once into a cooler clime. 
Ye fallen avenues ! once more I mourn 
Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice 
That yet a remnant of your race survives. 34° 

How airy and how light the graceful arch, 
Yet awful as the consecrated roof 
Re-echoing pious anthems ! while beneath 
The chequered earth seems restless as a flood 
Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light 345 

Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance, 
Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick, 
And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves 
Play wanton, every moment, every spot. 



12 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And now, with nerves new-braced and spirits cheered, 35° 
We tread the Wilderness, whose well-rolled walks, 
With curvature of slow and easy sweep — 
Deception innocent — give ample space 
To narrow bounds. The Grove receives us next ; 
Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms 355 

We may discern the thresher at his task. 
Thump after thump resounds the constant flail, 
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls 
Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaff ; 
The rustling straw sends up a frequent mist 360 

Of atoms, sparkling in the noonday beam. 
Come hither, ye that press your beds of down 
And sleep not ; see him sweating o'er his bread 
Before he eats it. — 'T is the primal curse, 
But softened into mercy ; made the pledge 3 6 5 

Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan. 

By ceaseless action all that is subsists. 
Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel 
That Nature rides upon, maintains her health, 
Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads 37° 

An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves. 
Its own revolvency upholds the world. 
Winds from all quarters agitate the air, 
And fit the limpid element for use, 

Else noxious : oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams, 375 

All feel the freshening impulse, and are cleansed 
By restless undulation. Even the oak 
Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm : 
He seems indeed indignant, and to feel 

The impression of the blast with proud disdain, 3%° 

Frowning as if in his unconscious arm 
He held the thunder. But the monarch owes 
His firm stability to what he scorns, 



THE TASK. 13 

More fixed below, the more disturbed above. 

The law by which all creatures else are bound, 3 8 5 

Binds man, the lord of all. Himself derives 

No mean advantage from a kindred cause, 

From strenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease. 

The sedentary stretch their lazy length 

When custom bids, but no refreshment find, 390 

For none they need : the languid eye, the cheek 

Deserted of its bloom, the flaccid, shrunk, 

And withered muscle, and the vapid soul, 

Reproach their owner with that love of rest 

To which he forfeits even the rest he loves. 395 

Not such the alert and active. Measure life 

By its true worth, the comforts it affords, 

And theirs alone seems worthy of the name. 

Good health, and its associate in the most, 

Good temper ; spirits prompt to undertake, 400 

And not soon spent, though in an arduous task ; 

The powers of fancy and strong thought, are theirs ; 

Even age itself seems privileged in them 

With clear exemption from its own defects. 

A sparkling eye beneath a wrinkled front 4° 5 

The veteran shows, and gracing a grey beard 

With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave 

Sprightly, and old almost without decay. 

Like a coy maiden, Ease, when courted most, 
Farthest retires — an idol, at whose shrine 4 J o 

Who oftenest sacrifice are favoured least. 
The love of Nature, and the scenes she draws, 
Is Nature's dictate. Strange there should be found 
Who, self-imprisoned in their proud saloons, 
Renounce the odours of the open field 4 J 5 

For the unscented fictions of the loom ; 
Who, satisfied with only pencilled scenes, 



14 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Prefer to the performance of a God 

The inferior wonders of an artist's hand. 

Lovely indeed the mimic works of Art, 4 2 ° 

But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire, 

None more admires, the painter's magic skill, 

Who shows me that which I shall never see, 

Conveys a distant country into mine, 

And throws Italian light on English walls : 4 2 5 

But imitative strokes can do no more 

Than please the eye — sweet Nature every sense. 

The air salubrious of her lofty hills, 

The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales, 

And music of her woods — no works of man 43° 

May rival these ; these all bespeak a power 

Peculiar, and exclusively her own. 

Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast ; 

'Tis free to all — 'tis every day renewed; 

Who scorns it, starves deservedly at home. 435 

He does not scorn it, who, imprisoned long 

In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey 

To sallow sickness, which the vapours dank 

And clammy of his dark abode have bred, 

Escapes at last to liberty and light : 44° 

His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue, 

His eye relumines its extinguished fires, 

He walks, he leaps, he runs - — is winged with joy, 

And riots in the sweets of every breeze. 

He does not scorn it, who has long endured 445 

A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs. 

Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed 

With acrid salts ; his very heart athirst 

To gaze at Nature in her green array, 

Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possessed 45° 

With visions prompted by intense desire : 



THE TASK. 15 

Fair fields appear below, such as he left 
Far distant, such as he would die to find, — 
He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more. 

The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ; 455 

The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, 
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, 
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause 
For such immeasurable woe appears, 

These Flora banishes, and gives the fair 460 

Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own. 
It is the constant revolution, stale 
And tasteless, of the same repeated joys, 
That palls and satiates, and makes languid life 
A pedler's pack, that bows the bearer down. 465 

Health suffers, and the spirits ebb ; the heart 
Recoils from its own choice — at the full feast 
Is famished — finds no music in the song, 
No smartness in the jest, and wonders why. 
Yet thousands still desire to journey on, 47° 

Though halt, and weary of the path they tread. 
The paralytic who can hold her cards 
But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand 
To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort 

Her mingled suits and sequences, and sits 475 

Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad 
And silent cipher, while her proxy plays. 
Others are dragged into the crowded room 
Between supporters ; and, once seated, sit 
Through downright inability to rise, 480 

Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again. 
These speak a loud memento. Yet even these 
Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he 
That overhangs a torrent, to a twig. 
They love it, and yet loathe it ; fear to die, 485 



16 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Yet scorn the purposes for which they live. 

Then wherefore not renounce them ? No — the dread, 

The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds 

Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame, 

And their inveterate habits, all forbid. 49° 

Whom call we gay ? That honour has been long 
The boast of mere pretenders to the name. 
The innocent are gay — the lark is gay, 
That dries his feathers saturate with dew 
Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams 495 

Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest. 
The peasant too, a witness of his song, 
Himself a songster, is as gay as he. 
But save me from the gaiety of those 

Whose headaches nail them to a noonday bed: 5°° 

And save me too from theirs whose haggard eyes 
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs 
For property stripped off by cruel chance ; 
From gaiety that fills the bones with pain, 
The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe. 5°5 

The earth was made so various, that the mind 
Of desultory man, studious of change, 
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. 
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen 

Till half their beauties fade ; the weary sight, 5 10 

Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off 
Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes. 
Then snug enclosures in the sheltered vale, 
Where frequent hedges intercept the eye, 
Delight us, happy to renounce awhile, 5*5 

Not senseless of its charms, what still we love, 
That such short absence may endear it more. 
Then forests, or the savage rock, may please, 
That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts 



THE TASK. 17 

Above the reach of man : his hoary head, 5 20 

Conspicuous many a league, the mariner 

Bound homeward, and in hope already there, 

Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist 

A girdle of half-withered shrubs he shows, 

And at his feet the baffled billows die. 5 2 5 

The common, overgrown with fern, and rough 

With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deformed, 

And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom, 

And decks itself with ornaments of gold, 

Yields no unpleasing ramble ; there the turf 53° 

Smells fresh, and, rich in odoriferous herbs 

And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense 

With luxury of unexpected sweets. 

There often wanders one, whom better days 
Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed 535 

With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. 
A serving-maid was she, and fell in love 
With one who left her, went to sea, and died. 
Her fancy followed him through foaming waves 
To distant shores, and she would sit and weep 54° 

At what a sailor suffers ; fancy too, 
Delusive most where warmest wishes are, 
Would oft anticipate his glad return, 
And dream of transports she was not to know. 
She heard the doleful tidings of his death, 545 

And never smiled again. And now she roams 
The dreary waste ; there spends the livelong day, 
And there, unless when charity forbids, 
The livelong night. A tattered apron hides, 
Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown 550 

More tattered still ; and both but ill conceal 
A bosom heaved with never-ceasing sighs. 
She begs an idle pin of all she meets, 



18 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And hoards them in her sleeve ; but needful food, 

Though pressed with hunger oft, or comelier clothes, 555 

Though pinched with cold, asks never. — Kate is crazed. 

I see a column of slow-rising smoke 
O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. 
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat 

Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung 560 

Between two poles upon a stick transverse, 
Receives the morsel ; flesh obscene of dog, 
Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined 
From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race ! 
They pick their fuel out of every hedge, 5 6 5 

Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquenched 
The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide 
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, 
The vellum of the pedigree they claim. 

Great skill have they in palmistry, and more 57° 

To conjure clean away the gold they touch, 
Conveying worthless dross into its place; 
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal. 
Strange ! that a creature rational, and cast 
In human mould, should brutalize by choice 575 

His nature, and, though capable of arts 
By which the world might profit and himself, 
Self banished from society, prefer 
Such squalid sloth to honourable toil ! 

Yet even these, though, feigning sickness oft, 5 8 ° 

They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb, 
And vex their flesh with artificial sores, 
Can change their whine into a mirthful note 
When safe occasion offers ; and with dance, 
And music of the bladder and the bag, 5 8 5 

Beguile their woes, and make the woods resound. 
Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy 



THE TASK. 19 

The houseless rovers of the sylvan world ; 

And breathing wholesome air, and wandering much, 

Need other physic none to heal the effects 590 

Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold. 

Blest he, though undistinguished from the crowd 
By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure 
Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside 
His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn 595 

The manners and the arts of civil life. 
His wants, indeed, are many ; but supply 
Is obvious ; placed within the easy reach 
Of temperate wishes and industrious hands. 
Here Virtue thrives as in her proper soil ; 600 

Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns, 
And terrible to sight, as when she springs 
(If e'er she spring spontaneous) in remote 
And barbarous climes, where violence prevails, 
And strength is lord of all • but gentle, kind, 605 

By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed, 
And all her fruits by radiant truth matured. 
War and the chase engross the savage whole : 
War followed for revenge, or to supplant 
The envied tenants of some happier spot ; 610 

The chase for sustenance, precarious trust ! 
His hard condition with severe constraint 
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth 
Of wisdom, proves a school in which he learns 
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate, 615 

Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside. 
Thus fare the shivering natives of the north, 
And thus the rangers of the western world, 
Where it advances far into the deep, 

Towards the Antarctic. Even the favoured isles, 620 

So lately found, although the constant sun 



20 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, 

Can boast but little virtue : and, inert 

Through plenty, lose in morals what they gain 

In manners — victims of luxurious ease. 625 

These therefore I can pity, placed remote 

From all that science traces, art invents, 

Or inspiration teaches ; and enclosed 

In boundless oceans, never to be passed 

By navigators uninformed as they, 630 

Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again. 

But far beyond the rest, and with most cause, 

Thee, gentle savage ! whom no love of thee 

Or thine, but curiosity, perhaps, 

Or else vain-glory, prompted us to draw 635 

Forth from thy native bowers, to show thee here 

With what superior skill we can abuse 

The gifts of Providence, and squander life. 

The dream is past ; and thou hast found again 

Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams, 640 

And homestall thatched with leaves. But hast thou found 

Their former charms ? And having seen our state, 

Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp 

Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports, 

And heard our music ; are thy simple friends, 645 

Thy simple fare, and all thy plain delights 

As dear to thee as once ? And have thy joys 

Lost nothing by comparison with ours ? 

Rude as thou art (for we returned thee rude 

And ignorant, except of outward show), 650 

I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart 

And spiritless, as never to regret 

Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known. 

Methinks I see thee straying on the beach, 

And asking of the surge that bathes thy foot 655 



THE TASK. 21 

If ever it has washed our distant shore. 

I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears, 

A patriot's for his country : thou art sad 

At thought of her forlorn and abject state, 

From which no power of thine can raise her up. 660 

Thus fancy paints thee, and, though apt to err, 

Perhaps errs little when she paints thee thus. 

She tells me too, that duly every morn 

Thou climb'st the mountain top, with eager eye 

Exploring far and wide the watery waste 665 

For sight of ship from England. Every speck 

Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale 

With conflict of contending hopes and fears. 

But comes at last the dull and dusky eve, 

And sends thee to thy cabin, well prepared 670 

To dream all night of what the day denied. 

Alas ! expect it not. We found no bait 

To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, 

Disinterested good, is not our trade. 

We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought ; 675 

And must be bribed to compass earth again 

By other hopes and richer fruits than yours. 

But though true worth and virtue, in the mild 
And genial soil of cultivated life, 

Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there, 680 

Yet not in cities oft : in proud and gay 
And gain-devoted cities'. Thither flow, 
As to a common and most noisome sewer, 
The dregs and feculence of every land. 

In cities foul example on most minds 685 

Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds 
In gross and pampered cities sloth and lust, 
And wantonness and gluttonous excess. 
In cities vice is hidden with most ease, 



22 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Or seen with least reproach ; and virtue, taught 690 

By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there 

Beyond the achievement of successful flight. 

I do confess them nurseries of the arts, 

In which they flourish most ; where, in the beams 

Of warm encouragement, and in the eye 695 

Of public note, they reach their perfect size. 

Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed 

The fairest capital of all the world, 

By riot and incontinence the worst. 

There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes 700 

A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees 

All her reflected features. Bacon there 

Gives more than female beauty to a stone, 

And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips. 

Nor does the chisel occupy alone 7°5 

The powers of Sculpture, but the style as much ; 

Each province of her art her equal care. 

With nice incision of her guided steel 

She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil 

So sterile with what charms soe'er she will, 7 10 

The richest scenery and the loveliest forms. 

Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye, 

With which she gazes at yon burning disk 

Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots ? 

In London. Where her implements exact, 7 I S 

With which she calculates, computes, and scans 

All distance, motion, magnitude, and now 

Measures an atom, and now girds a world ? 

In London. Where has commerce such a mart, 

So rich, so thronged, so drained, and so supplied, 7 20 

As London, opulent, enlarged, and still 

Increasing London ? Babylon of old 



THE TASK. 23 

Not more the glory of the earth than she, 

A more accomplished world's chief glory now. 

She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two 7 2 5 

That so much beauty would do well to purge ; 
And show this queen of cities, that so fair 
May yet be foul, so witty yet not wise. 
It is not seemly, nor of good report, 

That she is slack in discipline ; more prompt 73° 

To avenge than to prevent the breach of law ; 
That she is rigid in denouncing death 
On petty robbers, and indulges life 
And liberty, and ofttimes honour too, 

To peculators of the public gold ; 735 

That thieves at home must hang, but he that puts 
Into his overgorged and bloated purse 
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes. 
Nor is it well, nor can it come to good, 

That, through profane and infidel contempt 74° 

Of Holy Writ, she has presumed to annul 
And abrogate, as roundly as she may, 
The total ordinance and will of God ; 
Advancing Fashion to the post of Truth, 
And centering all authority in modes 745 

And customs of her own, till Sabbath rites 
Have dwindled into unrespected forms, 
And knees and hassocks are well-nigh divorced. 

God made the country, and man made the town : 
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts 75° 

That can alone make sweet the bitter draught 
That life holds out to all, should most abound 
And least be threatened in the fields and groves ? 
Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about 
In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue 755 



24 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

But that of idleness, and taste no scenes 

But such as art contrives, possess ye still 

Your element ; there only ye can shine, 

There only minds like yours can do no harm. 

Our groves were planted to console at noon 760 

The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve 

The moonbeam, sliding softly in between 

The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish, 

Birds warbling all the music. We can spare 

The splendour of your lamps, they but eclipse 765 

Our softer satellite. Your songs confound 

Our more harmonious notes : the thrush departs 

Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute. 

There is a public mischief in your mirth, 

It plagues your country. Folly such as yours 77° 

Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan, 

Has made, what enemies could ne'er have done, 

Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you, 

A mutilated structure, soon to fall. 



BOOK II. — THE TIME-PIECE. 

Argument. — Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the former book 

— Peace among the nations recommended on the ground of their 
common fellowship in sorrow — Prodigies enumerated — Sicilian earth- 
quakes — Man rendered obnoxious to these calamities by sin — God the 
agent in them — The philosophy that stops at secondary causes reproved 

— Our own late miscarriages accounted for — Satirical notice taken of 
our trips to Fontainebleau— But the pulpit, not satire, the proper engine 
of reformation — The reverend advertiser of engraved sermons — Petit- 
maitre parson — The good preacher — Picture of a theatrical clerical 
coxcomb — Story-tellers and jesters in the pulpit reproved — Apostrophe 
to popular applause — Retailers of ancient philosophy expostulated 
with — Sum of the whole matter — Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement 
on the laity — Their folly and extravagance — The mischiefs of profusion 

— Profusion itself, with all its consequent evils, ascribed, as to its princi- 
pal cause, to the want of discipline in the universities. 

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 

Some boundless contiguity of shade, 

Where rumour of oppression and deceit, 

Of unsuccessful or successful war, 

Might never reach me more ! My ear is pained, 5 

My soul is sick with every day's report 

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. 

There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, 

It does not feel for man ; the natural bond 

Of brotherhood is severed as the flax 10 

That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 

Not coloured like his own, and having power 

To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause 

Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. 15 

Lands intersected by a narrow frith 

Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 

Make enemies of nations who had else 



26 SELECTIONS .FROM COWPER. 

Like kindred drops been mingled into one. 

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 20 

And worse than all, and most to be deplored, 

As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 

Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 

With stripes that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, 

Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 25 

Then what is man ? And what man seeing this, 

And having human feelings, does not blush 

And hang his head, to think himself a man ? 

I would. not have a slave to till my ground, 

To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, 30 

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 

That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. 

No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 

Just estimation prized above all price, 

I had much rather be myself the slave 35 

And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 

We have no slaves at home. — Then why abroad ? 

And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave 

That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. 

Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs 4° 

Receive our air, that moment they are free, 

They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 

That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 

And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, 

And let it circulate through every vein 45 

Of all your empire ; that where Britain's power 

Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 

Sure there is need of social intercourse, 
Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, 
Between the nations, in a world that seems 5° 

To toll the death-bell of its own decease, 
And by the voice of all its element, 



THE TASK. 27 

To preach the general doom. When were the winds 

Let slip with such a warrant to destroy ? 

When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap 55 

Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry ? 

Fires from beneath, and meteors from above, 

Portentous, unexampled, unexplained, 

Have kindled beacons in the skies, and the old 

And crazy earth has had her shaking fits 60 

More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. 

Is it a time to wrangle, when the props 

And pillars of our planet seem to fail, 

And Nature with a dim and sickly eye 

To wait the close of all ? But grant her end 65 

More distant, and that prophecy demands 

A longer respite, unaccomplished yet ; 

Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak 

Displeasure in His breast who smites the earth 

Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. 7° 

And 'tis but seemly that, where all deserve 

And stand exposed by common peccancy 

To what no few have felt, there should be peace, 

And brethren in calamity should love. 

Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now 75 

Lie scattered where the shapely column stood. 
Her palaces are dust. In all her streets 
The voice of singing and the sprightly chord 
Are silent. Revelry and dance and show 
Suffer a syncope and solemn pause, 80 

While God performs upon the trembling stage 
Of His own works His dreadful part alone. 
How does the earth receive Him ? — with what signs 
Of gratulation and delight, her King ? 

Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad, 85 

Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums, 



28 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Disclosing Paradise where'er He treads ? 

She quakes at His approach. Her hollow womb 

Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps 

And fiery caverns, roars beneath His foot. 9° 

The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, 

For He has touched them. From the extremest point 

Of elevation down into the abyss, 

His wrath is busy and His frown is felt. 

The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise, 95 

The rivers die into offensive pools, 

And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a gross 

And mortal nuisance into all the air. 

What solid was, by transformation strange 

Grows fluid, and the fixed and rooted earth, ioo 

Tormented into billows, heaves and swells, 

Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl 

Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense 

The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs 

And agonies of human and of brute 105 

Multitudes, fugitive on every side, 

And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene 

Migrates uplifted, and with all its soil 

Alighting in far distant fields, finds out 

A new possessor, and survives the change. II0 

Ocean has caught the frenzy, and upwrought 

To an enormous and o'erbearing height, 

Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice 

Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore 

Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, JI 5 

Upridged so high, and sent on such a charge, 

Possessed an inland scene. Where now the throng 

That pressed the beach, and hasty to depart 

Looked to the sea for safety ? They are gone, 

Gone with the refluent wave into the deep — I2 ° 



THE TASK. 29 

A prince with half his people ! Ancient towers, 

And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes 

Where beauty oft and lettered worth consume 

Life, in the unproductive shades of death, 

Fall prone ; the pale inhabitants come forth, 125 

And, happy in their unforeseen release 

From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy 

The terrors of the day that sets them free. 

Who then that has thee would not hold thee fast, 

Freedom ! whom they that lose thee, so regret, 130 

That even a judgment making way for thee 

Seems in their eyes a mercy, for thy sake. 

Such evil sin hath wrought ; and such a flame 
Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth, 
And in the furious inquest that it makes 13S 

On God's behalf, lays waste His fairest works. 
The very elements, though each be meant 
The minister of man, to serve his wants, 
Conspire against him. With his breath he draws 
A plague into his blood ; and cannot use 14° 

Life's necessary means, but he must die. 
Storms rise to o'erwhelm him : or if stormy winds 
Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise, 
And needing none assistance of the storm, 
Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there. H5 

The earth shall shake him out of all his holds, 
Or make his house his grave : nor so content, 
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood, 
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs. 
What then ? — were they the wicked above all, 15° 

And we the righteous, whose fast-anchored isle 
Moved not, while theirs was rocked like a light skiff, 
The sport of every wave ? No : none are clear, 
And none than we more guilty. But where all 



30 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts 155 

Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose His mark, 

May punish, if He please, the less, to warn 

The more malignant. If He spared not them, 

Tremble and be amazed at thine escape, 

Far guiltier England ! lest He spare not thee. 160 

Happy the man who sees a God employed 
In all the good and ill that chequer life ! 
Resolving all events, with their effects 
And manifold results, into the will 

And arbitration wise of the Supreme. 165 

Did not His eye rule all things, and intend 
The least of our concerns, (since from the least 
The greatest oft originate,) could chance 
Find place in His dominion, or dispose 

One lawless particle to thwart His plan, 17° 

Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen 
Contingence might alarm Him, and disturb 
The smooth and equal course of His affairs. 
This truth Philosophy, though eagle-eyed 
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks, 175 

And, having found His instrument, forgets 
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, 
Denies the power that wills it. God proclaims 
His hot displeasure against foolish men 
That live an atheist life : involves the heaven 180 

In tempests ; quits His grasp upon the winds, 
And gives them all their fury ; bids a plague 
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin, 
And putrefy the breath of blooming health. 
He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend 185 

Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips, 
And taints the golden ear. He springs His mines, 
And desolates a nation at a blast. 



THE TASK. 31 

Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells 

Of homogeneal and discordant springs 19° 

And principles ; of causes, how they work 

By necessary laws their sure effects ; 

Of action and reaction. He has found 

The source of the disease that nature feels, 

And bids the world take heart and banish fear. 195 

Thou fool ! will thy discovery of the cause 

Suspend the effect, or heal it ? Has not God 

Still wrought by means since first He made the world, 

And did He not of old employ His means 

To drown it ? What is His creation less 200 

Than a capacious reservoir of means 

Formed for His use, and ready at His will ? 

Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve, ask of Him, 

Or ask of whomsoever He has taught, 

And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. 2 °5 

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still, 
My country ! and, while yet a nook is left 
Where English minds and manners may be found, 
Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 
Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deformed 210 

With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, 
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies 
And fields without a flower, for warmer France 
With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves 
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. 215 

To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime 
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire 
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task ; 
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake 
Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart 220 

As any thunderer there. And I can feel 
Thy follies too, and with a just disdain 



32 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Frown at effeminates, whose very looks 

Reflect dishonour on the land I love. 

How, in the name of soldiership and sense, 225 

Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth 

And tender as a girl, all-essenced o'er 

With odours, and as profligate as sweet, 

Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath, 

And love when they should fight, — when such as these 230 

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark 

Of her magnificent and awful cause ? 

Time was when it was praise and boast enough 

In every clime, and travel where we might, 

That we were born her children ; praise enough 235 

To fill the ambition of a private man, 

That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, 

And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. 

Farewell those honours, and farewell with them 

The hope of such hereafter ! They have fallen 240 

Each in his field of glory : one in arms, 

And one in council — Wolfe upon the lap 

Of smiling Victory that moment won, 

And Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame ! 

They made us many soldiers. Chatham still 245 

Consulting England's happiness at home, 

Secured it by an unforgiving frown 

If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought, 

Put so much of his heart into his act, 

That his example had a magnet's force, 250 

And all were swift to follow whom all loved. 

Those suns are set. Oh rise some other such ! 

Or all that we have left is empty talk 

Of old achievements, and despair of new. 

Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float 255 

Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck 



THE TASK. 33 

With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets, 

That no rude savour maritime invade 

The nose of nice nobility. Breathe soft, 

Ye clarionets, and softer still, ye flutes, 260 

That winds and waters lulled by magic sounds 

May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore. 

True, we have lost an empire — let it pass. 

True, we may thank the perfidy of France 

That picked the jewel out of England's crown, 265 

With all the cunning of an envious shrew. 

And let that pass, — 'twas but a trick of state. 

A brave man knows no malice, but at once 

Forgets in peace, the injuries of war, 

And gives his direst foe a friend's embrace. 270 

And shamed as we have been, to the very beard 

Braved and defied, and in our own sea proved 

Too weak for those decisive blows that once 

Ensured us mastery there, we yet retain 

Some small pre-eminence ; we justly boast 275 

At least superior jockeyship, and claim 

The honours of the turf as all our own. 

Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek, 

And show the shame ye might conceal at home, 

In foreign eyes ! — be grooms, and win the plate, 280 

Where once your nobler fathers won a crown ! — 

'Tis generous to communicate your skill 

To those that need it. Folly is soon learned : 

And under such preceptors who can fail ! 

There is a pleasure in poetic pains 285 

Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, 
The expedients and inventions multiform 
To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms 
Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win, — 
To arrest the fleeting images that fill 290 



34 SELECTIONS FROM CO WEEK. 

The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, 

And force them sit, till he has pencilled off 

A faithful likeness of the forms he views ; 

Then to dispose his copies with such art 

That each may find its most propitious light, 295 

And shine by situation, hardly less 

Than by the labour and the skill it cost, 

Are occupations of the poet's mind 

So pleasing, and that steal away the thought 

With such address from themes of sad import, 300 

That, lost in his own musings, happy man ! 

He feels the anxieties of life, denied 

Their wonted entertainment, all retire. * 

Such joys has he that sings. But ah ! not such, 

Or seldom such, the hearers of his song. 305 

Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps 

Aware of nothing arduous in a task 

They never undertook, they little note 

His dangers or escapes, and haply find 

Their least amusement where he found the most. 310 

But is amusement all ? Studious of song, 

And yet ambitious not to sing in vain, 

I would not trifle merely, though the world 

Be loudest in their praise who do no more. 

Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? 3*5 

It may correct a foible, may chastise 

The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, 

Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch ; 

But where are its sublimer trophies found ? 

What vice has it subdued ? whose heart reclaimed 3 2 ° 

By rigour, or whom laughed into reform ? 

Alas ! Leviathan is not so tamed : 

Laughed at, he laughs again ; and, stricken hard, 

Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales, 

That fear no discipline of human hands. 3 2 5 



THE TASK. 35 

The pulpit, therefore (and I name it filled 
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware 
With what intent I touch that holy thing) — 
The pulpit (when the satirist has at last, 
Strutting and vapouring in an empty school, 33° 

Spent all his force, and made no proselyte) — 
I say the pulpit (in the sober use 
Of its legitimate, peculiar powers) 

Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand, 
The most important and effectual guard, 335 

Support, and ornament of virtue's cause. 
There stands the messenger of truth. There stands 
The legate of the skies ; his theme divine, 
His office sacred, his credentials clear. 

By him, the violated law speaks out 34° 

Its thunders, and by him, in strains as sweet 
As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace. 
He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak, 
Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart, 
And, armed himself in panoply complete 345 

Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms 
Bright as his own, and trains by every rule 
Of holy discipline, to glorious war, 
The sacramental host of God's elect. 

Are all such teachers ? Would to Heaven all were ! 35° 

But hark, — the Doctor's voice ! — fast wedged between 
Two empirics he stands, and with swollen cheeks 
Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far 
Than all invective is his bold harangue, 
While through that public organ of report 355 

He hails the clergy ; and, defying shame, 
Announces to the world his own and theirs. 
He teaches those to read, whom schools dismissed, 
And colleges, untaught ; sells accent, tone, 



36 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And emphasis in score, and gives to prayer 360 

The adagio and andante it demands. 
He grinds divinity of other days 
Down into modern use ; transforms old print 
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes 
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts. 3 6 5 

Are there who purchase of the Doctor's ware ? 
Oh name it not in Gath ! — it cannot be 
That grave and learned Clerks should need such aid. 
He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll, 
Assuming thus a rank unknown before — 37° 

Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church. 
I venerate the man whose heart is warm, 
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life 
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof 

That he is honest in the sacred cause. 375 

To such I render more than mere respect, 
Whose actions say that they respect themselves. 
But loose in morals, and in manners vain, 
In conversation frivolous, in dress 

Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse, 3 8 ° 

Frequent in park, with lady at his side, 
Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes, 
But rare at home, and never at his books, 
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card ; 
Constant at routs, familiar with a round 3 8 5 

Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor ; 
Ambitious of preferment for its gold, 
And well prepared by ignorance and sloth 
By infidelity and love o' the world, 

To make God's work a sinecure ; a slave 390 

To his own pleasures and his patron's pride: — 
From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, 
Preserve the church ! and lay not careless hands 



THE TASK. 37 

On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn. 

Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, 395 

Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own, 
Paul should himself direct me. I would trace 
His master-strokes, and draw from his design. 
I would express him simple, grave, sincere ; 
In doctrine uncorrupt ; in language plain, 400 

And plain in manner ; decent, solemn, chaste, 
And natural in gesture ; much impressed 
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
May feel it too ; affectionate in look, 405 

And tender in address, as well becomes 
A messenger of grace to guilty men. 
Behold the picture ! Is it like ? — Like whom ? 
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, 
And then skip down again ; pronounce a text, 4 J o 

Cry-hem ! and reading what they never wrote, 
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, 
And with a well-bred -whisper close the scene ! 

In man or woman, but far most in man, 
And most of all in man that ministers 4 T 5 

And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe 
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn ; 
Object of my implacable disgust. 
What ! — will a man play tricks, will he indulge 
A silly fond conceit of his fair form 420 

And just proportion, fashionable mien, 
And pretty face, in presence of his God ? 
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes, 
As with the diamond on his lily hand, 

And play his brilliant parts before my eyes 4 2 5 

When I am hungry for the bread of life ? 
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames 



38 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

His noble office, and, instead of truth, 

Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock. 

Therefore, avaunt all attitude and stare, 43° 

And start theatric, practised at the glass. 

I seek divine simplicity in him 

Who handles things divine ; and all besides, 

Though learned with labour, and though much admired 

By curious eyes and judgments ill informed, 435 

To me is odious as the nasal twang 

Heard at conventicle, where worthy men, 

Misled by custom, strain celestial themes 

Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid. 

Some, decent in demeanour while they preach, 44° 

That task performed, relapse into themselves, 

And having spoken wisely, at the close 

Grow wanton, and give proof to every eye — 

Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not. 

Forth comes the pocket mirror. First we stroke 445 

An eyebrow ; next, compose a straggling lock ; 

Then with an air, most gracefully performed, 

Fall back into our seat, extend an arm, 

And lay it at its ease with gentle care, 

With handkerchief in hand, depending low. 45° 

The better hand, more busy, gives the nose 

Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye 

With opera-glass to watch the moving scene, 

And recognise the slow-retiring fair. 

Now this is fulsome, and offends me more 455 

Than in a churchman slovenly neglect 

And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind 

May be indifferent to her house of clay, 

And slight the hovel as beneath her care ; 

But how a body so fantastic, trim, 460 

And quaint in its deportment and attire, 



THE TASK. 39 

Can lodge a heavenly mind — demands a doubt. 

He that negotiates between God and man, 
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns 
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware 4 6 5 

Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful 
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul ; 
To break a jest, when pity would inspire 
Pathetic exhortation ; and to address 

The skittish fancy with facetious tales, 47° 

When sent with God's commission to the heart. 
So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip 
Or merry turn in all he ever wrote, 
And I consent you take it for your text, 
Your only one, till sides and benches fail. 475 

No: he was serious in a serious cause, 
And understood too well the weighty terms 
That he had ta'en in charge. He would not stoop 
To conquer those by jocular exploits, 
Whom truth and soberness assailed in vain. 4 8 ° 

Oh, popular applause ! what heart of man 
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms ? 
The wisest and the best feel urgent need 
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales ; 
But swelled into a gust — who then, alas ! 485 

With all his canvas set, and inexpert, 
And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power ? 
Praise from the rivelled lips of toothless, bald 
Decrepitude, and in the looks of lean 

And craving poverty, and in the bow 49° 

Respectful of the smutched artificer, 
Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb 
The bias of the purpose. How much more 
Poured forth by beauty splendid and polite, 
In language soft as adoration breathes ? 495 



40 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 



Ah, spare your idol ! think him human still ; 
Charms he may have, but he has frailties too ; 
Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire. 

All truth is from the sempiternal source 
Of Light Divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome 500 

Drew from the stream below. More favoured, we 
Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain-head. 
To them it flowed much mingled and defiled 
With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams 
Illusive of philosophy, so called, 505 

But falsely. Sages after sages strove 
In vain to filter off a crystal draught 
Pure from the lees, which often more enhanced 
The thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bred 
Intoxication and delirium wild. 5 10 

In vain they pushed inquiry to the birth 
And spring-time of the world ; asked, Whence is man ? 
Why formed at all ? And wherefore as he is ? 
Where must he find his Maker ? With what rites 
Adore Him? Will He hear, accept, and bless? 5 X 5 

Or does He sit regardless of His works ? 
Has man within him an immortal seed ? 
Or does the tomb take all ? If he survive 
His ashes, where ? and in what weal or woe ? 
Knots worthy of solution, which alone 5 20 

A Deity could solve. Their answers vague, 
And all at random, fabulous and dark, 
Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life 
Defective and unsanctioned, proved too weak 
To bind the roving appetite, and lead 5 2 S 

Blind Nature to a God not yet revealed. 
'Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts, 
Explains all mysteries, except her own, 
And so illuminates the path of life, 



THE TASK. 41 

That fools discover it, and stray no more. 53° 

Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir, 

My man of morals, nurtured in the shades 

Of Academus, is this false or true ? 

Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools ? 

If Christ, then why resort at every turn 535 

To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short 

Of man's occasions, when in Him reside 

Grace, knowledge, comfort, — an unfathomed store ? 

How oft, when Paul has served us with a text, 

Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached ! 540 

Men that, if now alive, would sit content 

And humble learners of a Saviour's worth, 

Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth, 

Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too. 

And thus it is. The pastor, either vain 545 

By nature, or by flattery made so, taught 
To gaze at his own splendour, and to exalt 
Absurdly, not his office, but himself, — 
Or unenlightened, and too proud to learn, — 
Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach, — 550 

Perverting often by the stress of lewd 
And loose example, whom he should instruct, — 
Exposes and holds up to broad disgrace 
The noblest function, and discredits much 
The brightest truths that man has ever seen. 555 

For ghostly counsel, if it either fall 
Below the exigence, or be not backed 
With show of love, at least with hopeful proof 
Of some sincerity on the giver's part ; 

Or be dishonoured in the exterior form 560 

And mode of its conveyance, by such tricks 
As move derision, or by foppish airs 
And histrionic mummery, that let down 



42 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

The pulpit to the level of the stage, 

Drops from the lips a disregarded thing. 565 

The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught, 

While prejudice in men of stronger minds 

Takes deeper root, confirmed by what they see. 

A relaxation of religion's hold 

Upon the roving and untutored heart 57° 

Soon follows, and the curb of conscience snapped, 

The laity run wild. — But do they now ? 

Note their extravagance, and be convinced. 

As nations, ignorant of God, contrive 
A wooden one, so we, no longer taught 575 

By monitors that mother church supplies, 
Now make our own. Posterity will ask 
(If e'er posterity see verse of mine), 
Some fifty or a hundred lustrums hence, 
What was a monitor in George's days ? 5 8 ° 

My very gentle reader yet unborn, 
Of whom I needs must augur better things, 
Since Heaven would sure grow weary of a world 
Productive only of a race like ours, 

A monitor is wood. Plank shaven thin. 5^5 

We wear it at our backs. There closely braced 
And neatly fitted, it compresses hard 
The prominent and most unsightly bones, 
And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its use 
Sovereign and most effectual to secure 59° 

A form not now gymnastic as of yore, 
From rickets and distortion, else our lot. 
But thus admonished we can walk erect, 
One proof at least of manhood ; while the friend 
Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge. 595 

Our habits, costlier than Lucullus wore, 
And by caprice as multiplied as his, 



THE TASK. 43 

Just please us while the fashion is at full, 

But change with every moon. The sycophant 

Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date ; 600 

Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye ; 

Finds one ill made, another obsolete, 

This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived ; 

And, making prize of all that he condemns 

With our expenditure defrays his own. 605 

Variety 's the very spice of life, 

That gives it all its flavour. We have run 

Through every change that fancy at the loom 

Exhausted, has had genius to supply; 

And, studious of mutation still, discard 610 

A real elegance, a little used, 

For monstrous novelty and strange disguise. 

We sacrifice to dress, till household joys 

And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, 

And keeps our larder lean ; puts out our fires, 615 

And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, 

Where peace and hospitality might reign. 

What man that lives, and that knows how to live, 

Would fail to exhibit at the public shows 

A form as splendid as the proudest there, 620 

Though appetite raise outcries at the cost ? 

A man o' the town dines late, but soon enough, 

With reasonable forecast and dispatch, 

To ensure a side-box station at half-price. 

You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress, 62 5 

His daily fare as delicate. Alas ! 

He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems 

With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet. 

The Rout is Folly's circle, which she draws 

With magic wand. So potent is the spell, 630 

That none decoyed into that fatal ring, 



44 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape. 

There we grow early grey, but never wise ; 

There form connexions, but acquire no friend ; 

Solicit pleasure, hopeless of success ; 635 

Waste youth in occupations only fit 

For second childhood ; and devote old age 

To sports which only childhood could excuse. 

There they are happiest who dissemble best 

Their weariness ; and they the most polite 640 

Who squander time and treasure with a smile, 

Though at their own destruction. She that asks 

Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, 

And hates their coming. They (what can they less ?) 

Make just reprisals, and with cringe and shrug, 645 

And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her. 

All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace, 

Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies 

And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, 

To her who, frugal only that her thrift 650 

May feed excesses she can ill afford, 

Is hackneyed home unlackeyed ; who in haste 

Alighting, turns the key in her own door, 

And at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, 

Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. 6 55 

Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives, 

On Fortune's velvet altar offering up 

Their last poor pittance — Fortune, most severe 

Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far 

Than all that held their routs in Juno's heaven ! 660 

So fare we in this prison-house the world. 

And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see 

So many maniacs dancing in their chains. 

They gaze upon the links that hold them fast, 

With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, 66 5 

Then shake them in despair, and dance again. 



THE TASK. 45 

Now basket up the family of plagues 
That waste our vitals ; peculation, sale 
Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds 

By forgery, by subterfuge of law, 670 

By tricks and lies as numerous and as keen 
As the necessities their authors feel; 
Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat 
At the right door. Profusion is the sire. 
Profusion unrestrained, with all that's base 675 

In character, has littered all the land, 
And bred, within the memory of no few, 
A priesthood such as Baal's was of old, 
A people such as never was till now. 

It is a hungry vice: — it eats up all 680 

That gives society its beauty, strength, 
Convenience, and security, and use : 
Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapped 
And gibbeted as fast as catchpole-claws 
Can seize the slippery prey: unties the knot 685 

Of union, and converts the sacred band 
That holds mankind together, to a scourge. 
Profusion deluging a state with lusts 
Of grossest nature and of worst effects, 

Prepares it for its ruin : hardens, blinds, 690 

And warps the consciences of public men 
Till they can laugh at virtue ; mock the fools 
That trust them ; and, in the end, disclose a face 
That would have shocked credulity herself 
Unmasked, vouchsafing this their sole excuse ; 695 

Since all alike are selfish — why not they ? 
This does Profusion, and the accursed cause 
Of such deep mischief has itself a cause. 

In colleges and halls, in ancient days, 
When learning, virtue, piety, and truth 700 



46 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Were precious, and inculcated with care, 

There dwelt a sage called Discipline. His head 

Not yet by time completely silvered o'er, 

Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, 

But strong for service still, and unimpaired. 7°5 

His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile 

Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard 

Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love. 

The occupation dearest to his heart 

Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke 7 J o 

The head of modest and ingenuous worth 

That blushed at its own praise ; and press the youth 

Close to his side that pleased him. Learning grew 

Beneath his care, a thriving vigorous plant ; 

The mind was well informed, the passions held 7 I S 

Subordinate, and diligence was choice. 

If e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must, 

That one among so many overleaped 

The limits of control, his gentle eye 

Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke ; 7 2 ° 

His frown was full of terror, and his voice 

Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe 

As left him not, till penitence had won 

Lost favour back again, and closed the breach. 

But Discipline, a faithful servant long, 7 2 5 

Declined at length into the vale of years ; 

A palsy struck his arm, his sparkling eye 

Was quenched in rheums of age, his voice unstrung 

Grew tremulous, and moved derision more 

Than reverence, in perverse rebellious youth. 73° 

So colleges and halls neglected much 

Their good old friend, and Discipline at length 

O'erlooked and unemployed, fell sick, and died. 

Then Study languished, Emulation slept, 



THE TASK. 47 

And Virtue fled. The schools became a scene 735 

Of solemn farce, where Ignorance in stilts, 

His cap well lined with logic not his own, 

With parrot-tongue performed the scholar's part, 

Proceeding soon a graduated dunce. 

Then compromise had place, and scrutiny 74° 

Became stone blind, precedence went in truck, 

And he was competent whose purse was so. 

A dissolution of all bonds ensued ; 

The curbs invented for the mulish mouth 

Of headstrong youth were broken ; bars and bolts 745 

Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates 

Forgot their office, opening with a touch ; 

Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade ; 

The tasselled cap and the spruce band a jest, 

A mockery of the world. What need of these 75° 

For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure, 

Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seen 

With belted waist and pointers at their heels 

Than in the bounds of duty ? What was learned, 

If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot, 755 

And such expense as pinches parents blue, 

And mortifies the liberal hand of love, 

Is squandered in pursuit of idle sports 

And vicious pleasures ; buys the boy a name, 

That sits a stigma on his father's house, 7 6 ° 

And cleaves through life inseparably close 

To him that wears it. What can after-games 

Of riper joys, and commerce with the world, 

The lewd vain world that must receive him soon, 

Add to such erudition thus acquired, 765 

Where science and where virtue are professed ? 

They may confirm his habits, rivet fast 

His folly, but to spoil him is a task 



48 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

That bids defiance to the united powers 

Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews. 77° 

Now, blame we most the nurslings or the nurse ? 

The children crooked and twisted and deformed 

Through want of care, or her whose winking eye 

And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood ? 

The nurse no doubt. Regardless of her charge, 775 

She needs herself correction ; needs to learn 

That it is dangerous sporting with the world, 

With things so sacred as a nation's trust, 

The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge. 

All are not such. I had a brother once — 7 8 o 

Peace to the memory of a man of worth, 
A man of letters, and of manners too ; 
Of manners sweet as virtue always wears 
When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles. 
He graced a college, in which order yet 7 8 5 

Was sacred ; and was honoured, loved, and wept 
By more than one, themselves conspicuous there. 
Some minds are tempered happily, and mixed 
With such ingredients of good sense and taste 
Of what is excellent in man, they thirst 79° 

With such a zeal to be what they approve, 
That no restraints can circumscribe them more 
Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake. 
Nor can example hurt them ; what they see 
Of vice in others but enhancing more 795 

The charms of virtue in their just esteem. 
If such escape contagion, and emerge 
Pure, from so foul a pool, to shine abroad, 
And give the world their talents and themselves, 
Small thanks to those whose negligence or sloth 8oo 

Exposed their inexperience to the snare, 
And left them to an undirected choice. 



THE TASK. 49 

See then the quiver broken and decayed, 
In which are kept our arrows. Rusting there 
In wild disorder, and unfit for use, 805 

What wonder, if discharged into the world, 
They shame their shooters with a random flight, 
Their points obtuse, and feathers drunk with wine. 
Well may the church wage unsuccessful war, 
With such artillery armed. Vice parries wide 810 

The undreaded volley with a sword of straw, 
And stands an impudent and fearless mark. 

Have we not tracked the felon home, and found 
His birthplace and his dam ? The country mourns, 
Mourns, because every plague that can infest 815 

Society, and that saps and worms the base 
Of the edifice that Policy has raised, 
Swarms in all quarters ; meets the eye, the ear, 
And suffocates the breath at every turn. 
Profusion breeds them ; and the cause itself 820 

Of that calamitous mischief has been found: 
Found too where most offensive, in the skirts 
Of the robed pedagogue. Else, let the arraigned 
Stand up unconscious, and refute the charge. 
So when the Jewish leader stretched his arm, 825 

And waved his rod divine, a race obscene, 
Spawned in the muddy beds of Nile, came forth, 
Polluting Egypt. Gardens, fields, and plains 
Were covered with the pest. The streets were filled : 
The croaking nuisance lurked in every nook, 830 

Nor palaces nor even chambers 'scaped, 
And the land stank, so numerous was the fry. 



BOOK III. — THE GARDEN. 

Argument. — Self-recollection and reproof — Address to domestic happi- 
ness — Some account of myself — The vanity of many of their pursuits 
who are reputed wise — Justification of my censures — Divine illumina- 
tion necessary to the most expert philosopher — The question, What is 
truth? answered by other questions — Domestic happiness addressed 
again — Few lovers of the country — My tame hare — Occupations of a 
retired gentleman in his garden — Pruning — Framing — Greenhouse — 
Sowing of flower-seeds — The country preferable to the town even in 
the winter — Reasons why it is deserted at that season — Ruinous effects 
of gaming, and of expensive improvement — Book concludes with an 
apostrophe to the metropolis. 

As one, who, long in thickets and in brakes 

Entangled, winds now this way and now that 

His devious course uncertain, seeking home ; 

Or having long in miry ways been foiled 

And sore discomfited, from slough to slough 5 

Plunging, and half despairing of escape, 

If chance at length he finds a greensward smooth 

And faithful to the foot, his spirits rise, 

He cherups brisk his ear-erecting steed, 

And winds his way with pleasure and with ease ; 10 

So I, designing other themes, and called 

To adorn the Sofa with eulogium due, 

To tell its slumbers and to paint its dreams, 

Have rambled wide : in country, city, seat 

Of academic fame (howe'er deserved), 15 

Long held and scarcely disengaged at last. 

But now with pleasant pace a cleanlier road 

I mean to tread. I feel myself at large, 

Courageous, and refreshed for future toil, 

If toil awaits me, or if dangers new. 20 



THE TASK. 51 

Since pulpits fail, and sounding-boards reflect 
Most part an empty ineffectual sound, 
What chance that I, to fame so little known, 
Nor conversant with men or manners much, 
Should speak to purpose, or with better hope 25 

Crack the satiric thong ? 'T were wiser far 
For me, enamoured of sequestered scenes, 
And charmed with rural beauty, to repose 
Where chance may throw me, beneath elm or vine, 
My languid limbs when summer sears the plains, 3° 

Or when rough winter rages, on the soft 
And sheltered Sofa, while the nitrous air 
Feeds a blue flame, and makes a cheerful hearth ; 
There, undisturbed by Folly, and apprised 
How great the danger of disturbing her, 35 

To muse in silence, or at least confine 
Remarks that gall so many, to the few 
My partners in retreat. Disgust concealed 
Is ofttimes proof of wisdom, when the fault 
Is obstinate, and cure beyond our reach. 40 

Domestic happiness, thou only bliss 
Of Paradise that has survived the fall ! 
Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure, 
Or tasting long enjoy thee, too infirm 

Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets 45 

Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect 
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup. 
Thou art the nurse of Virtue. In thine arms 
She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is, 
Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again. 5° 

Thou art not known where Pleasure is adored, 
That reeling goddess with the zoneless waist 
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm 
Of Novelty, her fickle frail support ; 



52 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

For thou art meek and constant, hating change, 55 

And finding in the calm of truth-tried love 

Joys that her stormy raptures never yield. 

Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made 

Of honour, dignity, and fair renown, 

Till prostitution elbows us aside 60 

In all our crowded streets, and senates seem 

Convened for purposes of empire less, 

Than to release the adultress from her bond. 

The adultress ! what a theme for angry verse ! 

What provocation to the indignant heart 65 

That feels for injured love ! but I disdain 

The nauseous task to paint her as she is, 

Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame. 

No. Let her pass, and charioted along 

In guilty splendour, shake the public ways ; 7° 

The frequency of crimes has washed them white ; 

And verse of mine shall never brand the wretch, 

Whom matrons now, of character unsmirched, 

And chaste themselves, are not ashamed to own. 

Virtue and vice had boundaries in old time, 75 

Not to be passed ; and she that had renounced 

Her sex's honour, was renounced herself 

By all that prized it ; not for prudery's sake, 

But dignity's, resentful of the wrong. 

'Twas hard perhaps on here and there a waif, 80 

Desirous to return, and not received ; 

But was a wholesome rigour in the main, 

And taught the unblemished to preserve with care 

That purity, whose loss was loss of all. 

Men too were nice in honour in those days, 85 

And judged offenders well. Then he that sharped, 

And pocketed a prize by fraud obtained, 

Was marked and shunned as odious. He that sold 



THE TASK. 53 

His country, or was slack when she required 

His every nerve in action and at stretch, 9° 

Paid with the blood that he had basely spared 

The price of his default. But now — yes, now, 

We are become so candid and so fair, 

So liberal in construction, and so rich 

In Christian charity, (good-natured age !) 95 

That they are safe, sinners of either sex, 

Transgress what laws they may. Well dressed, well bred, 

Well equipaged, is ticket good enough 

To pass us readily through every door. 

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may, ioo 

(And no man's hatred ever wronged her yet,) 

May claim this merit still — that she admits 

The worth of what she mimics with such care, 

And thus gives Virtue indirect applause ; 

But she has burned her mask, not needed here, 105 

Where Vice has such allowance, that her shifts 

And specious semblances have lost their use. 

I was a stricken deer that left the herd 
Long since ; with many an arrow deep infixed 
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew no 

To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
There was I found by One who had Himself 
Been hurt by the archers. In His side He bore, 
And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars. 
With gentle force soliciting the darts, 115 

He drew them forth, and healed and bade me live. 
Since then, with few associates, in remote 
And silent woods I wander, far from those 
My former partners of the peopled scene ; 
With few associates, and not wishing more. I2 ° 

Here much I ruminate, as much I may, 
With other views of men and manners now 



54 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Than once, and others of a life to come. 
I see that all are wanderers, gone astray- 
Each in his own delusions ; they are lost 125 
In chase of fancied happiness, still wooed 
And never won. Dream after dream ensues, 
And still they dream that they shall still succeed, 
And still are disappointed. Rings the world 
With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, 13° 
And add two-thirds of the remaining half, 
And find the total of their hopes and fears 
Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay 
As if created only like the fly 

That spreads his motley wings in the eye of noon, 135 

To sport their season, and be seen no more. 
The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise, 
And pregnant with discoveries new and rare. 
Some write a narrative of wars, and feats 
Of heroes little known, and call the rant 140 

A history : describe the man, of whom 
His own coevals took but little note, 
And paint his person, character, and views, 
As they had known him from his mother's womb. 
They disentangle from the puzzled skein 145 

In which obscurity has wrapped them up, 
The threads of politic and shrewd design 
That ran through all his purposes, and charge 
His mind with meanings that he never had, 
Or having, kept concealed. Some drill and bore 150 

The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn 
That He who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age. 

Some, more acute and more industrious still, 15^ 

Contrive creation; travel Nature up 



THE TASK. 55 

To the sharp peak of her sublimest height, 

And tell us whence the stars ; why some are fixed, 

And planetary some ; what gave them first 

Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light. 160 

Great contest follows, and much learned dust 

Involves the combatants, each claiming truth, 

And truth disclaiming both : and thus they spend 

The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp 

In playing tricks with nature, giving laws 165 

To distant worlds, and trifling in their own. 

Is 't not a pity now, that tickling rheums 

Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight 

Of oracles like these ? Great pity too, 

That having wielded the elements, and built 17° 

A thousand systems, each in his own way, 

They should go out in fume and be forgot ? 

Ah ! what is life thus spent ? and what are they 

But frantic who thus spend it all for smoke ? 

Eternity for bubbles proves at last 175 

A senseless bargain. When I see such games 

Played by the creatures of a Power who swears 

That He will judge the earth, and call the fool 

To a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain ; 

And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well, 180 

And prove it in the infallible result 

So hollow and so false — I feel my heart 

Dissolve in pity, and account the learned, 

If this be learning, most of all deceived. 

Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps l8 5 

While thoughtful man is plausibly amused. 

" Defend me therefore, common sense," say I, 

" From reveries so airy, from the toil 

Of dropping buckets into empty wells, 

And growing old in drawing nothing up ! " 19° 



56 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

" 'T were well," says one sage erudite, profound, 
Terribly arched and aquiline his nose, 
And overbuilt with most impending brows — 
" 'T were well, could you permit the world to live 
As the world pleases. What's the world to you ?" 195 

Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk, 
As sweet as charity, from human breasts. 
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, 
And exercise all functions of a man. 

How then should I and any man that lives 200 

Be strangers to each other ? Pierce my vein, 
Take of the crimson stream meandering there, 
And catechise it well. Apply thy glass, 
Search it, and prove now if it be not blood 
Congenial with thine own : and if it be, 205 

What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose 
Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art, 
To cut the link of brotherhood, by which 
One common Maker bound me to the kind? 
True ; I am no proficient, I confess, , 210 

In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift 
And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds, 
And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath ; 
I cannot analyse the air, nor catch 

The parallax of yonder luminous point 2I 5 

That seems half quenched in the immense abyss ; 
Such powers I boast not — neither can I rest 
A silent witness of the headlong rage 
Or heedless folly by which thousands die, 
Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine. 22 ° 

God never meant that man should scale the heavens 
By strides of human wisdom. In His works, 
Though wondrous, He commands us in His word 
To seek Him rather where His mercy shines. 



THE TASK. 57 

The mind indeed, enlightened from above, 225 

Views Him in all ; ascribes to the grand cause 

The grand effect ; acknowledges with joy 

His manner, and with rapture tastes His style. 

But never yet did philosophic tube, 

That brings the planets home into the eye 230 

Of observation, and discovers, else 

Not visible, His family of worlds, 

Discover Him that rules them ; such a veil 

Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth, 

And dark in things divine. Full often too 235 

Our wayward intellect, the more we learn 

Of nature, overlooks her Author more, 

From instrumental causes proud to draw 

Conclusions retrograde, and mad mistake. 

But if His word once teach us, shoot a ray 240 

Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal 

Truths undiscerned but by that holy light, 

Then all is plain. Philosophy baptized 

In the pure fountain of eternal love 

Has eyes indeed ; and viewing all she sees 245 

As meant to indicate a God to man, 

Gives Him His praise, and forfeits not her own. 

Learning has borne such fruit in other days 

On all her branches: piety has found 

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer 250 

Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews. 

Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage ! 

Sagacious reader of the works of God, 

And in His word sagacious. Such too thine, 

Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, 255 

And fed on manna. And such thine, in whom 

Our British Themis gloried with just cause, 

Immortal Hale ! for deep discernment praised 



58 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And sound integrity, not more than famed 

For sanctity of manners undented. 260 

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades 
Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind ; 
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream; 
The man we celebrate must find a tomb, 
And we that worship him, ignoble graves. 265 

Nothing is proof against the general curse 
Of vanity, that seizes all below. 
The only amaranthine flower on earth 
Is virtue ; the only lasting treasure, truth. 
But what is truth ? 'T was Pilate's question put 270 

To Truth itself, that deigned him no reply. 
And wherefore ? will not God impart His light 
To them that ask it ? — Freely — 'tis His joy, 
His glory and His nature, to impart. 

But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, 275 

Or negligent inquirer, not a spark. 
What's that which brings contempt upon a book, 
And him who writes it, though the style be neat, 
The method clear, and argument exact ? 
That makes a minister in holy things 280 

The joy of many, and the dread of more, 
His name a theme for praise and for reproach ? 
That while it gives us worth in God's account, 
Depreciates and undoes us in our own ? 
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy, 285 

That learning is too proud to gather up, 
But which the poor and the despised of all 
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought ? 
Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth. 

Oh friendly to the best pursuits of man, 290 

Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, 
Domestic life in rural leisure passed ! 



THE TASK. 59 

Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets, 

Though many boast thy favours, and affect 

To understand and choose thee for their own. 295 

But foolish man foregoes his proper bliss, 

Even as his first progenitor, and quits, 

Though placed in Paradise, (for earth has still 

Some traces of her youthful beauty left,) 

Substantial happiness for transient joy. 3 00 

Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse 

The growing seeds of wisdom — that suggest, 

By every pleasing image they present, 

Reflections such as meliorate the heart, 

Compose the passions, and exalt the mind — 305 

Scenes such as these, 'tis his supreme delight 

To fill with riot, and defile with blood. 

Should some contagion, kind to the poor brutes 

We persecute, annihilate the tribes 

That draw the sportsman over hill and dale 3 TO 

Fearless, and rapt away from all his cares ; 

Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again, 

Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye ; 

Could pageantry and dance, and feast and song, 

Be quelled in all our summer-months' retreats ; 3 l S 

How many self-deluded nymphs and swains, 

Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves, 

Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen, 

And crowd the roads, impatient for the town ! 

They love the country, and none else, who seek 3 20 

For their own sake its silence and its shade ; 

Delights which who would leave, that has a heart 

Susceptible of pity, or a mind 

Cultured and capable of sober thought, 

For all the savage din of the swift pack, 3 2 5 

And clamours of the field ? Detested sport, 



60 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

That owes its pleasures to another's pain, 

That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks 

Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued 

With eloquence that agonies inspire, 330 

Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs ! 

Vain tears, alas ! and sighs that never find 

A corresponding tone in jovial souls. 

Well, — one at least is safe. One sheltered hare 

Has never heard the sanguinary yell 335 

Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. 

Innocent partner of my peaceful home, 

Whom ten long years' experience of my care 

Has made at last familiar, she has lost 

Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, 34° 

Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. 

Yes, — thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand 

That feeds thee ; thou mayst frolic on the floor 

At evening, and at night retire secure 

To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarmed : 345 

For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged 

All that is human in me to protect 

Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love. 

If I survive thee I will dig thy grave ; 

And when I place thee in it, sighing say, 35° 

I knew at least one hare that had a friend. 

How various his employments whom the world 
Calls idle, and who justly in return 
Esteems that busy world an idler too ! 

Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen, 355 

Delightful industry enjoyed at home, 
And Nature in her cultivated trim 
Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad 
Can he want occupation who has these ? 
Will he be idle who has much to enjoy ? 3 60 



THE TASK. 61 

Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease, 

Not slothful, happy to deceive the time 

Not waste it, and aware that human life 

Is but a loan to be repaid with use, 

When He shall call His debtors to account, 365 

From whom are all our blessings, business finds 

Even here ; while sedulous I seek to improve, 

At least neglect not, or leave unemployed, 

The mind He gave me ; driving it, though slack 

Too oft, and much impeded in its work 370 

By causes not to be divulged in vain, 

To its just point — the service of mankind. 

He that attends to his interior self, — 

That has a heart and keeps it, — has a mind 

That hungers and supplies it, — and who seeks 375 

A social, not a dissipated life, — 

Has business ; feels himself engaged to achieve 

No unimportant, though a silent task. 

A life all turbulence and noise may seem 

To him that leads it, wise and to be praised; 3 8 ° 

But wisdom is a pearl with most success 

Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies. 

He that is ever occupied in storms 

Or dives not for it, or brings up instead, 

Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize. 385 

The morning finds the self-sequestered man 
Fresh for his task, intend what task he may. 
Whether inclement seasons recommend 
His warm but simple home, where he enjoys, 
With her who shares his pleasures and his heart, 39° 

Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph 
Which neatly she prepares ; then to his book 
Well chosen, and not sullenly perused 
In selfish silence, but imparted oft 



62 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

As aught occurs that she may smile to hear, 395 

Or turn to nourishment digested well. 

Or if the garden with its many cares, 

All well repaid, demand him, he attends 

The welcome call, conscious how much the hand 

Of lubbard Labour needs his watchful eye, 400 

Oft loitering lazily if not o'erseen, 

Or misapplying his unskilful strength. 

Nor does he govern only or direct, 

But much performs himself. No works indeed 

That ask robust tough sinews bred to toil, 4°5 

Servile employ ; but such as may amuse, 

Not tire, demanding rather skill than force. 

Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his trees 

That meet, no barren interval between, 

With pleasure more than even their fruits afford, 4 T o 

Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel : 

These therefore are his own peculiar charge, 

No meaner hand may discipline the shoots, 

None but his steel approach them. What is weak, 

Distempered, or has lost prolific powers, 4 T 5 

Impaired by age, his unrelenting hand 

Dooms to the knife : nor does he spare the soft 

And succulent, that feeds its giant growth 

But barren, at the expense of neighbouring twigs 

Less ostentatious, and yet studded thick 4 2 ° 

With hopeful gems. The rest, no portion left 

That may disgrace his art, or disappoint 

Large expectation, he disposes neat 

At measured distances, that air and sun, 

Admitted freely, may afford their aid, 4 2 5 

And ventilate and warm the swelling buds. 

Hence Summer has her riches, Autumn hence, 

And hence even Winter fills his withered hand 



THE TASK. 63 

With blushing fruits, and plenty not his own. 

Fair recompense of labour well bestowed, 43° 

And wise precaution, which a clime so rude 

Makes needful still, whose Spring is but the child 

Of churlish Winter, in her froward moods 

Discovering much the temper of her sire. 

For oft, as if in her the stream of mild 435 

Maternal nature had reversed its course, 

She brings her infants forth with many smiles, 

But once delivered, kills them with a frown. 

He therefore, timely warned, himself supplies 

Her want of care, screening and keeping warm 44° 

The plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may sweep 

His garlands from the boughs. Again, as oft 

As the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild, 

The fence withdrawn, he gives them every beam, 

And spreads his hopes before the blaze of day. 445 

To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd, 
So grateful to the palate, and when rare 
So coveted, else base and disesteemed, — 
Food for the vulgar merely, — is an art 

That toiling ages have but just matured, 45° 

And at this moment unassayed in song. 
Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice, long since 
Their eulogy ; those sang the Mantuan bard, 
And these the Grecian, in ennobling strains ; 
And in thy numbers, Philips, shines for aye 455 

The solitary Shilling. Pardon then, 
Ye sage dispensers of poetic* fame, 
The ambition of one meaner far, whose powers, 
Presuming an attempt not less sublime, 

Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste 460 

Of critic appetite, no sordid fare, 
A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce. 



64 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

The stable yields a stercoraceous heap, 
Impregnated with quick fermenting salts, 
And potent to resist the freezing blast : 465 

For ere the beech and elm have cast their leaf 
Deciduous, when now November dark 
Checks vegetation in the torpid plant 
Exposed to his cold breath, the task begins. 
Warily therefore, and with prudent heed, 47° 

He seeks a favoured spot ; 'that where he builds 
The agglomerated pile, his frame may front 
The sun's meridian disk, and at the back 
Enjoy close shelter, wall, or reeds, or hedge 
Impervious to the wind. First he bids spread 475 

Dry fern or littered hay, that may imbibe 
The ascending damps ; then leisurely impose, 
And lightly, shaking it with agile hand 
From the full fork, the saturated straw. 
What longest binds the closest, forms secure 480 

The shapely side, that as it rises takes, 
By just degrees, an overhanging breadth, 
Sheltering the base with its projected eaves. 
The uplifted frame, compact at every joint, 
And overlaid with clear translucent glass, 485 

He settles next upon the sloping mount, 
Whose sharp declivity shoots off secure 
From the dashed pane the deluge as it falls : 
He shuts it close, and the first labour ends. 
Thrice must the voluble and restless earth 49° 

Spin round upon her axle, ere the warmth, 
Slow gathering in the midst, through the square mass 
Diffused, attain the surface : when, behold ! 
A pestilent and most corrosive steam, 

Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast, 495 

And fast condensed upon the dewy sash, 



THE TASK. 65 

Asks egress ; which obtained, the overcharged 

And drenched conservatory breathes abroad, 

In volumes wheeling slow, the vapour dank, 

And purified, rejoices to have lost 500 

Its foul inhabitant. But to assuage 

The impatient fervour which it first conceives 

Within its reeking bosom, threatening death 

To his young hopes, requires discreet delay. 

Experience, slow preceptress ; teaching oft 5°5 

The way to glory by miscarriage foul, 

Must prompt him, and admonish how to catch 

The auspicious moment, when the tempered heat, 

Friendly to vital motion, may afford 

Soft fermentation, and invite the seed. 5 10 

The seed, selected wisely, plump, and smooth, 

And glossy, he commits to pots of size 

Diminutive, well filled with well-prepared 

And fruitful soil, that has been treasured long, 

And drunk no moisture from the dripping clouds : 515 

These on the warm and genial earth that hides 

The smoking manure, and o'erspreads it all, 

He places lightly, and as time subdues 

The rage of fermentation, plunges deep 

In the soft medium, till they stand immersed. 5 2 ° 

Then rise the tender germs, upstarting quick 

And spreading wide their spongy lobes, at first 

Pale, wan, and livid, but assuming soon, 

If fanned by balmy and nutritious air, 

Strained through the friendly mats, a vivid green. 5 2 5 

Two leaves produced, two rough indented leaves, 

Cautious he pinches from the second stalk 

A pimple, that portends a future sprout, 

And interdicts its growth. Thence straight succeed 

The branches, sturdy to his utmost wish, 53° 



66 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Prolific all, and harbingers of more. 

The crowded roots demand enlargement now, 

And transplantation in an ampler space. 

Indulged in what they wish, they soon supply 

Large foliage, overshadowing golden flowers, 535 

Blown on the summit of the apparent fruit. 

These have their sexes, and when summer shines, 

The bee transports the fertilizing meal 

From flower to flower, and even the breathing air 

Wafts the rich prize to its appointed use. 54° 

Not so when Winter scowls. Assistant art 

Then acts in Nature's office, brings to pass 

The glad espousals, and ensures the crop. 

Grudge not, ye rich, (since luxury must have 
His dainties, and the world's more numerous half 545 

Lives by contriving delicates for you,) 
Grudge not the cost. Ye little know the cares, 
The vigilance, the labour, and the skill 
That day and night are exercised, and hang 
Upon the ticklish balance of suspense, 550 

That ye may garnish your profuse regales 
With summer fruits brought forth by wintry suns. 
Ten thousand dangers lie in wait to thwart 
The process. Heat and cold, and wind and steam, 
Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarming flies, 555 
Minute as dust and numberless, oft work 
Dire disappointment that admits no cure, 
And which no care can obviate. It were long, 
Too long to tell the expedients and the shifts 
Which he that fights a season so severe 560 

Devises, while he guards his tender trust, 
And oft at last in vain. The learned and wise, 
Sarcastic, would exclaim, and judge the song 
Cold as its theme, and, like its theme, the fruit 
Of too much labour, worthless when produced. 565 



THE TASK. 67 

Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too. 
Unconscious of a less propitious clime, 
There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug, 
While the winds whistle and the snows descend. 
The spiry myrtle with unwithering leaf 57° 

Shines there and flourishes. The golden boast 
Of Portugal and western India there, 
The ruddier orange and the paler lime, 
Peep through their polished foliage at the storm, 
And seem to smile at what they need not fear. 575 

The amomum there with intermingling flowers 
And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts 
Her crimson honours, and the spangled beau, 
Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long. 
All plants, of every leaf that can endure 5^° 

The winter's frown, if screened from his shrewd bite, 
Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, 
Levantine regions these ; the Azores send 
Their jessamine, her jessamine remote 

Caffraria : foreigners from many lands, 5^5 

They form one social shade, as if convened 
By magic summons of the Orphean lyre. 
Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass 
But by a master's hand, disposing well 

The gay diversities of leaf and flower, 59° 

Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms, 
And dress the regular yet various scene. 
Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van 
The dwarfish, in the rear retired, but still 
Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand. 595 

So once were ranged the sons of ancient Rome, 
A noble show ! while Roscius trod the stage ; 
And so, while Garrick as renowned as he, 
The sons of Albion, fearing each to lose 



68 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Some note of Nature's music from his lips, 600 

And covetous of Shakspeare's beauty seen 

In every flash of his far-beaming eye. 

Nor taste alone and well-contrived display 

Suffice to give the marshalled ranks the grace 

Of their complete effect. Much yet remains 605 

Unsung, and many cares are yet behind, 

And more laborious ; cares on which depends 

Their vigour, injured soon, not soon restored. 

The soil must be renewed, which, often washed, 

Loses its treasure of salubrious salts, 610 

And disappoints the roots ; the slender roots 

Close interwoven, where they meet the vase 

Must smooth be shorn away ; the sapless branch 

Must fly before the knife ; the withered leaf 

Must be detached, and where it strews the floor 615 

Swept with a woman's neatness, breeding else 

Contagion, and disseminating death. 

Discharge but these kind offices, (and who 

Would spare, that loves them, offices like these ?) 

Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleased, 620 

The scent regaled, each odoriferous leaf, 

Each opening blossom, freely breathes abroad 

Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets. 

So manifold, all pleasing in their kind, 
All healthful, are the employs of rural life, 625 

Reiterated as the wheel of time 
Runs round ; still ending, and beginning still. 
Nor are these all. To deck the shapely knoll, 
That, softly swelled and gaily dressed, appears 
A flowery island, from the dark green lawn 630 

Emerging, must be deemed a labour due 
To no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste. 
Here also grateful mixture of well-matched 



THE TASK. 69 

And sorted hues (each giving each relief, 

And by contrasted beauty shining more) 635 

Is needful. Strength may wield the ponderous spade, 

May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home, 

But elegance, chief grace the garden shows, 

And most attractive, is the fair result 

Of thought, the creature of a polished mind. 640 

Without it, all is gothic as the scene 

To which the insipid citizen resorts 

Near yonder heath ; where industry misspent, 

But proud of his uncouth ill-chosen task, 

Has made a heaven on earth ; with suns and moons 645 

Of close-rammed stones has charged the encumbered soil 

And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust. 

He therefore who would see his flowers disposed 

Sightly and in just order, ere he gives 

The beds the trusted treasure of their seeds, 650 

Forecasts the future whole ; that when the scene 

Shall break into its preconceived display, 

Each for itself, and all as with one voice 

Conspiring, may attest his bright design. 

Nor even then, dismissing as performed 655 

His pleasant work, may he suppose it done. 

Few self-supported flowers endure the wind 

Uninjured, but expect the upholding aid 

Of the smooth shaven prop, and neatly tied, 

Are wedded thus, like beauty to old age, 660 

For interest sake, the living to the dead. 

Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffused 

And lowly creeping, modest and yet fair, 

Like virtue, thriving most where little seen ; 

Some, more aspiring, catch the neighbour shrub 665 

With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch, 

Else unadorned, with many a gay festoon 



70 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 

The strength they borrow with the grace they lend. 

All hate the rank society of weeds, 670 

Noisome, and ever greedy to exhaust 

The impoverished earth ; an overbearing race, 

That, like the multitude made faction-mad, 

Disturb good order, and degrade true worth. 

O blest seclusion from a jarring world, 675 

Which he, thus occupied, enjoys ! Retreat 
Cannot indeed to guilty man restore 
Lost innocence, or cancel follies past ; 
But it has peace, and much secures the mind 
From all assaults of evil, proving still 680 

A faithful barrier, not o'erleaped with ease 
By vicious custom, raging uncontrolled 
Abroad, and desolating public life. 
When fierce temptation, seconded within 
By traitor appetite, and armed with darts 685 

Tempered in Hell, invades the throbbing breast, 
To combat may be glorious, and success 
Perhaps may crown us, but to fly is safe. 
Had I the choice of sublunary good, 

What could I wish that I possess not here ? 690 

Health, leisure, means to improve it, friendship, peace, 
No loose or wanton, though a wandering muse, 
And constant occupation without care. 
Thus blest, I draw a picture of that bliss ; 
Hopeless indeed that dissipated minds, 695 

And profligate abusers of a world 
Created fair so much in vain for them, 
Should seek the guiltless joys that I describe, 
Allured by my report : but sure no less 

That, self condemned, they must neglect the prize, 7°o 

And what they will not taste must yet approve. 



THE TASK. 71 

What we admire we praise ; and when we praise, 

Advance it into notice, that its worth 

Acknowledged, others may admire it too. 

I therefore recommend, though at the risk 705 

Of popular disgust, yet boldly still, 

The cause of piety, and sacred truth, 

And virtue, and those scenes which God ordained 

Should best secure them and promote them most ; 

Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive 7 IQ 

Forsaken, or through folly not enjoyed. 

Pure is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles, 

And chaste, though unconfined, whom I extol ; 

Not as the prince in Shushan, when he called, 

Vainglorious of her charms, his Vashti forth 715 

To grace the full pavilion. His design 

Was but to boast his own peculiar good, 

Which all might view with envy, none partake. 

My charmer is not mine alone ; my sweets, 

And she that sweetens all my bitters too, 7 20 

Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form 

And lineaments divine I trace a hand 

That errs not, and find raptures still renewed, 

Is free to all men — universal prize. 

Strange that so fair a creature should yet want 7 2 5 

Admirers, and be destined to divide 

With meaner objects even the few she finds. 

Stripped of her ornaments, her leaves, and flowers, 

She loses all her influence. Cities then 

Attract us, and neglected nature pines, 73° 

Abandoned, as unworthy of our love. 

But are not wholesome airs, though unperfumed 

By roses, and clear suns though scarcely felt, 

And groves, if unharmonious, yet secure 

From clamour, and whose very silence charms, 735 



72 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

To be preferred to smoke, to the eclipse 

That metropolitan volcanoes make, 

Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long, 

And to the stir of Commerce, driving slow, 

And thundering loud, with his ten thousand wheels ? 74° 

They would be, were not madness in the head, 

And folly in the heart ; were England now 

What England was, plain, hospitable, kind, 

And undebauched. But we have bid farewell 

To all the virtues of those better days, 745 

And all their honest pleasures. Mansions once 

Knew their own masters, and laborious hinds 

Who had survived the father, served the son. 

Now the legitimate and rightful lord 

Is but a transient guest, newly arrived, 7S° 

And soon to be supplanted. He that saw 

His patrimonial timber cast its leaf 

Sells the last scantling, and transfers the price 

To some shrewd sharper, ere it buds again. 

Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile, 7 $$ 

Then advertised, and auctioneered away. 

The country starves, and they that feed the o'ercharged 

And surfeited lewd town with her fair dues, 

By a just judgment strip and starve themselves. 

The wings that waft our riches out of sight 760 

Grow on the gamester's elbows, and the alert 

And nimble motion of those restless joints, 

That never tire, soon fans them all away. 

Improvement too, the idol of the age, 

Is fed with many a victim. Lo ! he comes, — 765 

The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears. 

Down falls the venerable pile, the abode 

Of our forefathers, a grave whiskered race, 

But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, 



THE TASK. 73 

But in a distant spot, where more exposed, 77° 

It may enjoy the advantage of the north, 

And aguish east, till time shall have transformed 

Those naked acres to a sheltering grove. 

He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn, 

Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise, 775 

And streams, as if created for his use, 

Pursue the track of his directing wand, 

Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow, 

Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades, 

Even as he bids. The enraptured owner smiles. 7 8 ° 

'T is finished ! and yet, finished as it seems, 

Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show, 

A mine to satisfy the enormous cost. 

Drained to the last poor item of his wealth, 

He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished plan 785 

That he has touched, retouched, many a long day 

Laboured, and many a night pursued in dreams, 

Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the heaven 

He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy. 

And now perhaps the glorious hour is come, 79° 

When having no stake left, no pledge to endear 

Her interests, or that gives her sacred cause 

A moment's operation on his love, 

He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal 

To serve his country. Ministerial grace 795 

Deals him out money from the public chest ; 

Or if that mine be shut, some private purse 

Supplies his need with a usurious loan, 

To be refunded duly, when his vote, 

Well managed, shall have earned its worthy price. 800 

Oh innocent, compared with arts like these, 

Crape and cocked pistol, and the whistling ball 

Sent through the traveller's temples ! He that finds 



74 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

One drop of Heaven's sweet mercy in his cup, 

Can dig, beg, rot, and perish, well content 805 

So he may wrap himself in honest rags 

At his last gasp ; but could not for a world 

Fish up his dirty and dependent bread 

From pools and ditches of the commonwealth, 

Sordid and sickening at his own success. 810 

Ambition, avarice, penury incurred 
By endless riot, vanity, the lust 
Of pleasure and variety, despatch, 
As duly as the swallows disappear, 

The world of wandering knights and squires to town. 815 
London ingulfs them all. The shark is there, 
And the shark's prey ; the spendthrift and the leech 
That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he 
Who, with bareheaded and obsequious bows, 
Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail, 820 

And groat per diem, if his patron frown. 
The levee swarms, as if, in golden pomp, 
Were charactered on every statesman's door, 
" Battered and bankrupt fortunes mended here." 
These are the charms that sully and eclipse 825 

The charms of nature. 'T is the cruel gripe 
That lean hard-handed Poverty inflicts, 
The hope of better things, the chance to win, 
The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused, 
That at the sound of Winter's hoary wing 830 

Unpeople all our counties of such herds 
Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose 
And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast 
And boundless as it is, a crowded coop. 

Oh thou, resort and mart of all the earth, 835 

Chequered with all complexions of mankind, 
And spotted with all crimes ; in whom I see 



THE TASK. 75 

Much that I love, and more that I admire, 

And all that I abhor ; thou freckled fair, 

That pleasest and yet shockest me, I can laugh 840 

And I can weep, can hope and can despond, 

Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee ! 

Ten righteous would have saved a city once, 

And thou hast many righteous. — Well for thee ! 

That salt preserves thee ; more corrupted else, 845 

And therefore more obnoxious at this hour, 

Than Sodom in her day had power to be, 

For whom God heard His Abraham plead in vain. 



BOOK IV. — THE WINTER EVENING. 

Argument. — The post comes in — The newspaper is read — The world 
contemplated at a distance — Address to winter — The rural amusements 
of a winter evening compared with the fashionable ones — Address to 
evening — A brown study — Fall of snow in the evening — The waggoner 

— A poor family piece — The rural thief — Public-houses — The multi- 
tude of them censured — The farmer's daughter; what she was; what 
she is — The simplicity of country manners almost lost — Causes of the 
change — Desertion of the country by the rich — Neglect of magistrates 

— The militia principally in fault — The new recruit and his transforma- 
tion — Reflection on bodies corporate — The love of rural objects natural 
to all, and never to be totally extinguished. 

Hark ! 'tis the twanging horn ! O'er yonder bridge, 

That with its wearisome but needful length 

Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 

Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright, 

He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 5 

With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, 

News from all nations lumbering at his back. 

True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, 

Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 

Is to conduct it to the destined inn, 10 

And having dropped the expected bag — pass on. 

He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, 

Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief 

Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some, 

To him indifferent whether grief or joy. J 5 

Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, 

Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 

With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks 

Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, 20 

Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 



THE TASK. 77 

His horse and him, unconscious of them all. 

But oh the important budget ! ushered in 

With such heart-shaking music, who can say 

What are its tidings ? have our troops awaked ? 25 

Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, 

Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave ? 

Is India free ? and does she wear her plumed 

And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, 

Or do we grind her still ? The grand debate, 3° 

The popular harangue, the tart reply, 

The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, 

And the loud laugh — I long to know them all ; 

I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, 

And give them voice and utterance once again. 35 

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn 
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups 
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 40 

So let us welcome peaceful evening in. 
Not such his evening, who with shining face 
Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed 
And bored with elbow-points through both his sides, 
Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage ; 45 

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb, 
And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath 
Of patriots bursting with heroic rage, 
Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles. 

This folio of four pages, happy work ! 5° 

Which not even critics criticise ; that holds 
Inquisitive attention, while I read, 
Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, 
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ; 
What is it but a map of busy life, 55 



78 SELECTIONS FROM COVVPER. 

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns ? 

Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge 

That tempts ambition. On the summit, see, 

The seals of office glitter in his eyes ; 

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them. At his heels, 60 

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, 

And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down, 

And wins them, but to lose them in his turn. 

Here rills of oily eloquence in soft 

Meanders lubricate the course they take ; 65 

The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved 

To engross a moment's notice, and yet begs, 

Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts, 

However trivial all that he conceives. 

Sweet bashfulness ! it claims, at least, this praise 70 

The dearth of information and good sense 

That it foretells us, always comes to pass. 

Cataracts of declamations thunder here, 

There forests of no meaning spread the page 

In which all comprehension wanders lost; 75 

While fields of pleasantry amuse us there 

With merry descants on a nation's woes. 

The rest appears a wilderness of strange 

But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks 

And lilies for the brows of faded age, 80 

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, 

Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets, 

Nectareous essences, Olympian dews, 

Sermons and city feasts, and favourite airs, 

^Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits, 85 

And Katerfelto, with his hair on end 

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. 

'T is pleasant through the loopholes of retreat 
To peep at such a world ; to see the stir 



THE TASK. 79 

Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; 9° 

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates 

At a safe distance, where the dying sound 

Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear. 

Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease 

The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced 95 

To some secure and more than mortal height, 

That liberates and exempts me from them all. 

It turns submitted to my view, turns round 

With all its generations ; I behold 

The tumult, and am still. The sound of war ioo 

Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me ; 

Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride 

And avarice that make man a wolf to man, 

Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats, 

By which he speaks the language of his heart, T o5 

And sigh, but never tremble at the sound. 

He travels and expatiates, as the bee 

From flower to flower, so he from land to land ; 

The manners, customs, policy of all 

Pay contribution to the store he gleans; IID 

He sucks intelligence in every clime, 

And spreads the honey of his deep research 

At his return, a rich repast for me. 

He travels, and I too. I tread his deck, 

Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes "5 

Discover countries, with a kindred heart 

Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes ; 

While fancy, like the finger of a clock, 

Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. 

O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, 120 

Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled, 
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks 
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows 



80 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds, 

A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne 125 

A sliding car^ indebted to no wheels, 

But urged by storms along its slippery way • 

I love thee, ail unlovely as thou seemest, 

And dreaded as thou art. Thou holdest the sun 

A prisoner in the yet undawning east, 13° 

Shortening his journey between morn and noon, 

And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, 

Down to the rosy west ; but kindly still 

Compensating his loss with added hours 

Of social converse and instructive ease, 135 

And gathering, at short notice, in one group 

The family dispersed, and fixing thought, 

Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares. 

I crown thee King of intimate delights, 

Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness, 14° 

And all the comforts that the lowly roof 

Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours 

Of long uninterrupted evening know. 

No rattling wheels stop short before these gates ; 

No powdered pert, proficient in the art *45 

Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors 

Till the street rings ; no stationary steeds 

Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, 

The silent circle fan themselves, and quake : 

But here the needle plies its busy task, 15° 

The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower, 

Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, 

Unfolds its bosom ; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, 

And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, 

Follow the nimble finger of the fair ; 155 

A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blow 

With most success when all besides decay. 



THE TASK. 81 

The poet's or historian's page, by one 

Made vocal for the amusement of the rest ; 

The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds 160 

The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out ; 

And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, 

And in the charming strife triumphant still ; 

Beguile the night, and set a keener edge 

On female industry: the threaded steel 165 

Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. 

The volume closed, the customary rites 

Of the last meal commence. A Roman meal, 

Such as the mistress of the world once found 

Delicious, when her patriots of high note, 170 

Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors, 

And under an old oak's domestic shade, 

Enjoyed, spare feast! a radish and an egg. 

Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull, 

Nor such as with a frown forbids the play 175 

Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth ; 

Nor do we madly, like an impious world, 

Who deem religion frenzy, and the God 

That made them an intruder on their joys, 

Start at His awful name, or deem His praise l8 ° 

A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone, 

Exciting oft our gratitude and love, 

While we retrace with memory's pointing wand, 

That calls the past to our exact review, 

The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare, l8 5 

The disappointed foe, deliverance found 

Unlooked for, life preserved and peace restored, 

Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. 

" Oh evenings worthy of the gods ! " exclaimed 

The Sabine bard. Oh evenings, I reply, 19° 

More to be prized and coveted than yours, 



82 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

As more illumined, and with nobler truths, 
That I and mine, and those we love, enjoy. 

Is Winter hideous in a garb like this ? 
Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, 195 

The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng, 
To thaw him into feeling, or the smart 
And snappish dialogue that flippant wits 
Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile ? 
The self-complacent actor, when he views 200 

(Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) 
The slope of faces from the floor to the roof 
(As if one master spring controlled them all) 
Relaxed into an universal grin, 

Sees not a countenance there that speaks of joy 205 

Half so refined or so sincere as ours. 
Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks 
That idleness has ever yet contrived 
To fill the void of an unfurnished brain, 
To palliate dulness, and give time a shove. 210 

Time as he passes us, has a dove's wing, 
Unsoiled and swift, and of a silken sound; 
But the world's Time is Time in masquerade. 
Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged 
With motley plumes ; and where the peacock shows 215 

His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red 
With spots quadrangular of diamond form, 
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, 
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves. 
What should be, and what was an hour-glass once, 220 

Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mace 
Well does the work of his destructive scythe. 
Thus decked, he charms a world whom fashion blinds 
To his true worth, most pleased when idle most, 
Whose only happy are their wasted hours. 225 



THE TASK. 83 

Even misses, at whose age their mothers wore 

The backstring and the bib, assume the dress 

Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school 

Of card-devoted Time, and night by night 

Placed at some vacant corner of the board, 230 

Learn every trick, and soon play all the game. 

But truce with censure. Roving as I rove, 

Where shall I find an end, or how proceed ? 

As he that travels far, oft turns aside 

To view some rugged rock or mouldering tower, 235 

Which seen, delights him not ; then coming home, 

Describes and prints it, that the world may know 

How far he went for what was nothing worth ; 

So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread, 

With colours mixed for a far different use, 240 

Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thing 

That fancy finds in her excursive nights. 

Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ; 
Return, sweet Evening, and continue long ! 
Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, 245 

With matron step slow moving, while the Night 
Treads on thy sweeping train ; one hand employed 
In letting fall the curtain of repose 
On bird and beast, the other charged for man 
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day ; 250 

Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid, 
Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems ; 
A star or two just twinkling on thy brow 
Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine 
No less than hers, not worn indeed on high 255 

With ostentatious pageantry, but set 
With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, 
Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. 
Come then ; aiad thou shalt find thy votary calm, 



84 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Or make me so. Composure is thy gift : 260 

And whether I devote thy gentler hours 
To books, to music, or the poet's toil ; 
To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit ; 
Or twining silken threads round ivory reels, 
When they command whom man was born to please ; 265 
I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still. 
Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze 
With lights, by clear reflexion multiplied 
From many a mirror, in which he of Gath, 
Goliath, might have seen his giant bulk 2 7° 

Whole without stooping, towering crest and all, 
My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps 
The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile 
With faint illumination, that uplifts 

The shadow to the ceiling, there by fits 2 75 

Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame. 
Not undelightful is an hour to me 
So spent in parlour twilight ; such a gloom 
Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind, 
The mind contemplative, with some new theme 280 

Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all. 
Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers, 
That never feel a stupor, know no pause, 
Nor need one ; I am conscious, and confess, 
Fearless, a soul that does not always think. 285 

Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild, 
Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers, 
Trees, churches, and strange visages expressed 
In the red cinders, while with poring eye 
I gazed, myself creating what I saw. 290 

Nor less amused have I quiescent watched 
The sooty films that play upon the bars 
Pendulous, and foreboding, in the view 



THE TASK. 85 

Of superstition, prophesying still, 

Though still deceived, some stranger's near approach. 295 

'T is thus the understanding takes repose 

In indolent vacuity of thought, 

And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face 

Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask 

Of deep deliberation, as the man 3 00 

Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost. 

Thus oft, reclined at ease, I lose an hour 

At evening, till at length the freezing blast, 

That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home 

The recollected powers, and snapping short 3°5 

The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves 

Her brittle toils, restores me to myself. 

How calm is my recess, and how the frost, 

Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear 

The silence and the warmth enjoyed within ! 3 IQ 

I saw the woods and fields at close of day 

A variegated show ; the meadows green, 

Though faded ; and the lands, where lately waved 

The golden harvest, of a mellow brown, 

Upturned so lately by the forceful share : 3*5 

I saw far off the weedy fallows smile 

With verdure not unprofitable, grazed 

By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each 

His favourite herb ; while all the leafless groves 

That skirt the horizon, wore a sable hue, 3 20 

Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve. 

To-morrow brings a change, a total change ! 

Which even now, though silently performed 

And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face 

Of universal nature undergoes. 3 2 5 

Fast falls a fleecy shower : the downy flakes 

Descending, and, with never-ceasing lapse, 



86 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Softly alighting upon all below, 

Assimilate all objects. Earth receives 

Gladly the thickening mantle, and the green 33° 

And tender blade that feared the chilling blast 

Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil. 

In such a world, so thorny, and where none 
Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found, 
Without some thistly sorrow at its side, 335 

It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin 
Against the law of love, to measure lots 
With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus 
We may with patience bear our moderate ills, 
And sympathise with others, suffering more. 34° 

111 fares the traveller now, and he that stalks 
In ponderous boots beside his reeking team. 
The wain goes heavily, impeded sore 
By congregated loads adhering close 

To the clogged wheels ; and in its sluggish pace 345 

Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow. 
The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide, 
While every breath, by respiration strong 
Forced downward, is consolidated soon 
Upon their jutting chests. He, formed to bear 35° 

The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night, 
With half-shut eyes and puckered cheeks, and teeth 
Presented bare against the storm, plods on. 
One hand secures his hat, save when with both 
He brandishes his pliant length of whip, 355 

Resounding oft, and never heard in vain. 
Oh happy ! and in my account, denied 
That sensibility of pain with which 
Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou. 
Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed 360 

The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired. 



THE TASK. 87 

The learned finger never need explore 

Thy vigorous pulse ; and the unhealthful east, 

That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone 

Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee. 3 6 5 

Thy days roll on exempt from household care ; 

The waggon is thy wife ; and the poor beasts 

That drag the dull companion to and fro, 

Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care. 

Ah, treat them kindly ! rude as thou appearest, 37° 

Yet show that thou hast mercy, which the great, 

With needless hurry whirled from place to place, 

Humane as they would seem, not always show. 

Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat, 
Such claim compassion in a night like this, 375 

And have a friend in every feeling heart. 
Warmed, while it lasts, by labour, all day long 
They brave the season, and yet find at eve, 
111 clad and fed but sparely, time to cool. 
The frugal housewife trembles when she lights 3^° 

Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear, 
But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys. 
The few small embers left she nurses well, 
And while her infant race, with outspread hands, 
And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks, 3^5 

Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. 
The man feels least, as more inured than she 
To winter, and the current in his veins 
More briskly moved by his severer toil ; 
Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs. 39° 

The taper soon extinguished, which I saw 
Dangled along at the cold finger's end 
Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf 
Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce 
Of savoury cheese, or butter costlier still, 395 



88 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Sleep seems their only refuge : for, alas ! 
Where penury is felt the thought is chained, 
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few. 
With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care, 
Ingenious parsimony takes, but just 4°o 

Saves the small inventory, bed and stool, 
Skillet and old carved chest, from public sale. 
They live, and live without extorted alms 
From grudging hands, but other boast have none 
To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg ; 405 

Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. 
I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair, 
For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far 
A dry but independent crust, hard earned, 
And eaten with a sigh, than to endure 4*0 

The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs 
Of knaves in office, partial in the work 
Of distribution ; liberal of their aid 
To clamorous importunity in rags, 

But ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would blush 4 T 5 

To wear a tattered garb however coarse, 
Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth ; 
These ask with painful shyness, and refused 
Because deserving, silently retire. 

But be ye of good courage. Time itself 4 2 ° 

Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase, 
And all your numerous progeny, well trained 
But helpless, in few years shall find their hands, 
And labour too. Meanwhile ye shall not want 
What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare, 4 2 5 

Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send. 
I mean the man who, when the distant poor 
Need help, denies them nothing but his name. 
But poverty, with most who whimper forth 



THE TASK. 89 

Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe; 43° 

The effect of laziness or sottish waste. 

Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroad 

For plunder ; much solicitous how best 

He may compensate for a day of sloth, 

By works of darkness and nocturnal wrong. 435 

Woe to the gardener's pale, the farmer's hedge 

Plashed neatly, and secured with driven stakes 

Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength, 

Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame 

To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil, 44° 

An ass's burden, and when laden most 

And heaviest, light of foot steals fast away. 

Nor does the boarded hovel better guard 

The well-stacked pile of riven logs and roots 

From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave 445 

Unwrenched the door, however well secured, 

Where chanticleer amidst his harem sleeps 

In unsuspecting pomp. Twitched from the perch, 

He gives the princely bird, with all his wives, 

To his voracious bag, struggling in vain, 45° 

And loudly wondering at the sudden change. 

Nor this to feed his own. 'T were some excuse 

Did pity of their sufferings warp aside 

His principle, and tempt him into sin 

For their support, so destitute. But they 455 

Neglected pine at home, themselves, as more 

Exposed than others, with less scruple made 

His victims, robbed of their defenceless all. 

Cruel is all he does. 'T is quenchless thirst 

Of ruinous ebriety that prompts 460 

His every action, and imbrutes the man. 

Oh for a law to noose the villain's neck 

Who starves his own : who persecutes the blood 



90 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

He gave them in his children's veins, and hates 

And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love ! 465 

Pass where we may, through city or through town, 
Village or hamlet, of this merry land, 
Though lean and beggared, every twentieth pace 
Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whirl 
Of stale debauch, forth issuing from the styes 47° 

That law has licensed, as makes temperance reel. 
There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds 
Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor, 
The lackey, and the groom ; the craftsman there 
Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil ; 475 

Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears, 
And he that kneads the dough ; all loud alike, 
All learned, and all drunk. The fiddle screams 
Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wailed 
Its wasted tones and harmony unheard ; 4 8 ° 

Fierce the dispute, whate'er the theme ; while she, 
Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate, 
Perched on the sign-post, holds with even hand 
Her undecisive scales. In this she lays 
A weight of ignorance ; in that, of pride ; 4 8 5 

And smiles delighted with the eternal poise. 
Direis the frequent curse, and its twin sound 
The cheek-distending oath, not to be praised 
As ornamental, musical, polite, 

Like those which modern senators employ, 49° 

Whose oath is rhetoric, and who swear for fame. 
Behold the schools in which plebeian minds, 
Once simple, are initiated in arts 
Which some may practise with politer grace, 
But none with readier skill ! 'T is here they learn 495 

The road that leads from competence and peace 
To indigence and rapine ; till at last 



THE TASK. 91 

Society, grown weary of the load, 

Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out. 

But censure profits little : vain the attempt 5 00 

To advertise in verse a public pest, 

That like the filth with which the peasant feeds 

His hungry acres, stinks, and is of use. 

The Excise is fattened with the rich result 

Of all this riot ; and ten thousand casks, 5°5 

For ever dribbling out their base contents, 

Touched by the Midas finger of the State, 

Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. 

Drink and be mad then ; 't is your country bids 

Gloriously drunk, obey the important call ! 5 IQ 

Her cause demands the assistance of your throats ; 

Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more. 

Would I had fallen upon those happier days 
That poets celebrate ; those golden times 
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings, 5 T 5 

And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose. 
Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts 
That felt their virtues : Innocence, it seems, 
From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves. 
The footsteps of simplicity, impressed 5 2 ° 

Upon the yielding herbage (so they sing), 
Then were not all effaced : then speech profane, 
And manners profligate, were rarely found, 
Observed as prodigies, and soon reclaimed. 
Vain wish ! those days were never : airy dreams 5 2 5 

Sat for the picture ; and the poet's hand, 
Imparting substance to an empty shade, 
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth. 
Grant it : I still must envy them an age 
That favoured such a dream, in days like these 53° 

Impossible, when Virtue is so scarce, 



92 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

That to suppose a scene where she presides 

Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief. 

No : we are polished now. The rural lass, 

Whom once her virgin modesty and grace, 535 

Her artless manner, and her neat attire, 

So dignified, that she was hardly less 

Than the fair shepherdess of old romance, 

Is seen no more. The character is lost. 

Her head, adorned with lappets pinned aloft, 54° 

And ribands streaming gay, superbly raised, 

And magnified beyond all human size, 

Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand 

For more than half the tresses it sustains ; 

Her elbows ruffled, and her tottering form 545 

111 propped upon French heels ; she might be deemed 

(But that the basket dangling on her arm 

Interprets her more truly) of a rank 

Too proud for dairy work or sale of eggs. 

Expect her soon with footboy at her heels, 55° 

No longer blushing for her awkward load, 

Her train and her umbrella all her care. 

The town has tinged the country ; and the stain 
Appears a spot upon a vestal's robe, 

The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs 555 

Down into scenes still rural ; but, alas ! 
Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now ! 
Time was when in the pastoral retreat 
The unguarded door was safe ; men did not watch 
To invade another's right, or guard their own. 5 6 ° 

Then sleep was undisturbed by fear, unscared 
By drunken howlings ; and the chilling tale 
Of midnight murder was a wonder heard 
With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes. 
But farewell now to unsuspicious nights, 5 6 5 



THE TASK. 93 

And slumbers unalarmed. Now, ere you sleep, 

See that your polished arms be primed with care, 

And drop the nightbolt ; ruffians are abroad ; 

And the first 'larum of the cock's shrill throat 

May prove a trumpet, summoning your ear 57° 

To horrid sounds of hostile feet within. 

Even daylight has its dangers ; and the walk 

Through pathless wastes and woods, unconscious once 

Of other tenants than melodious birds 

Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold. 575 

Lamented change ! to which full many a cause 

Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, conspires. 

The course of human things from good to ill, 

From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails. 

Increase of power begets increase of wealth ; 580 

Wealth luxury, and luxury excess ; 

Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague 

That seizes first the opulent, descends 

To the next rank contagious, and in time 

Taints downward all the graduated scale 585 

Of order, from the chariot to the plough. 

The rich, and they that have an arm to check 

The licence of the lowest in degree, 

Desert their office ; and themselves intent 

On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus 590 

To all the violence of lawless hands 

Resign the scenes their presence might protect. 

Authority herself not seldom sleeps, 

Though resident, and witness of the wrong. 

The plump convivial parson often bears 595 

The magisterial sword in vain, and lays 

His reverence and his worship both to rest 

On the same cushion of habitual sloth. 

Perhaps timidity restrains his arm ; 



94 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

When he should strike, he trembles, and sets free, 600 

Himself enslaved by terror of the band, 
The audacious convict, whom he dares not bind. 
Perhaps, though by profession ghostly pure, 
He too may have his vice, and sometimes prove 
Less dainty than becomes his grave outside 605 

In lucrative concerns. Examine well 
His milk-white hand ; the palm is hardly clean, — 
But here and there an ugly smutch appears. 
Foh ! 't was a bribe that left it : he has touched 
Corruption. Whoso seeks an audit here 610 

Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish, 
Wildfowl or venison, and his errand speeds. 
But faster far, and more than all the rest, 
A noble cause, which none who bears a spark 
Of public virtue ever wished removed, 615 

Works the deplored and mischievous effect. 
'T is universal soldiership has stabbed 
The heart of merit in the meaner class. 
Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage 
Of those that bear them, in whatever cause, 620 

Seem most at variance with all moral good, 
And incompatible with serious thought. 
The clown, the child of nature, without guile, 
Blest with an infant's ignorance of all 

But his own simple pleasures, now and then 625 

A wrestling-match, a foot-race, or a fair, 
Is balloted, and trembles at the news : 
Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears 
A Bible-oath to be whate'er they please, 
To do he knows not what. The task performed, 630 

That instant he becomes the Serjeant's care, 
His pupil, and his torment, and his jest. 
His awkward gait, his introverted toes, 



THE TASK. 95 

Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks, 

Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees, 635 

Unapt to learn, and formed of stubborn stuff, 

He yet by slow degrees puts off himself, 

Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well ; 

He stands erect ; his slouch becomes a walk ; 

He steps right onward, martial in his air, 640 

His form, and movement ; is as smart above 

As meal and larded locks can make him ; wears 

His hat, or his plumed helmet, with a grace ; 

And, his three years of heroship expired, 

Returns indignant to the slighted plough. 645 

He hates the field, in which no fife or drum 

Attends him, drives his cattle to a march, 

And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. 

'T were well if his exterior change were all — 

But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost 650 

His ignorance and harmless manners too. 

To swear, to game, to drink, to show at home 

By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath breach, 

The great proficiency he made abroad, 

To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends, 655 

To break some maiden's and his mother's heart, 

To be a pest where he was useful once, 

Are his sole aim, and all his glory now. 

Man in society is like a flower 
Blown in its native bed : 't is there alone 660 

His faculties, expanded in full bloom, 
Shine out ; there only reach their proper use. 
But man associated and leagued with man 
By regal warrant, or self-joined by bond 
For interest sake, or swarming into clans 665 

Beneath one head for purposes of war, 
Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound 



96 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, 



Fades rapidly, and by compression marred, 

Contracts defilement not to be endured. 670 

Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues ; 

And burghers, men immaculate perhaps 

In all their private functions, once combined, 

Become a loathsome body, only fit 

For dissolution, hurtful to the main. 675 

Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin 

Against the charities of domestic life, 

Incorporated, seem at once to lose 

Their nature, and disclaiming all regard 

For mercy and the common rights of man, 680 

Build factories with blood, conducting trade 

At the sword's point, and dyeing the white robe 

Of innocent commercial justice red. 

Hence too the field of glory, as the world 

Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array, 685 

With all its majesty of thundering pomp, 

Enchanting music, and immortal wreaths, 

Is but a school where thoughtlessness is taught 

On principle, where foppery atones 

For folly, gallantry for every vice. 690 

But slighted as it is, and by the great 
Abandoned, and, which still I more regret, 
Infected with the manners and the modes 
It knew not once, the country wins me still. 
I never framed a wish, or formed a plan, 695 

That flattered me with hopes of earthly bliss, 
But there I laid the scene. There early strayed 
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice 
Had found me, or the hope of being free. 
My very dreams were rural, rural too 7°° 

The firstborn efforts of my youthful muse, 



THE TASK. 97 

Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells 

Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers. 

No bard could please me but whose lyre was tuned 

To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats 7°5 

Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe 

Of Tityrus, assembling, as he sang, 

The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech. 

Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms: 

New to my taste, his Paradise surpassed 7 IQ 

The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue 

To speak its excellence ; I danced for joy. 

I marvelled much that, at so ripe an age 

As twice seven years, his beauties had then first 

Engaged my wonder, and admiring still, 7 I 5 

And still admiring, with regret supposed 

The joy half lost because not sooner found. 

Thee too, enamoured of the life I loved, 

Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit 

Determined, and possessing it at last 7 20 

With transports such as favoured lovers feel, 

I studied, prized, and wished that I had known, 

Ingenious Cowley! and though now reclaimed 

By modern lights from an erroneous taste, 

I cannot but lament thy splendid wit 7 2 S 

Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools; 

I still revere thee, courtly though retired, 

Though stretched at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers, 

Not unemployed, and finding rich amends 

For a lost world in solitude and verse. 73° 

'T is born with all : the love of Nature's works 

Is an ingredient in the compound, man, 

Infused at the creation of the kind. 

And though the Almighty Maker has throughout 

Discriminated each from each, by strokes 735 



98 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And touches of His hand, with so much art 

Diversified, that two were never found 

Twins at all points — yet this obtains in all, 

That all discern a beauty in His works, 

And all can taste them: minds that have been formed 74° 

And tutored with a relish more exact, 

But none without some relish, none unmoved. 

It is a flame that dies not even there 

Where nothing feeds it : neither business, crowds, 

Nor habits of luxurious city life, 745 

Whatever else they smother of true worth 

In human bosoms, quench it or abate. 

The villas with which London stands begirt, 

Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads, 

Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air, 75° 

The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer 

The citizen, and brace his languid frame ! 

Even in the stifling bosom of the town, 

A garden in which nothing thrives has charms 

That soothe the rich possessor; much consoled 755 

That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint, 

Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well 

He cultivates. These serve him with a hint 

That Nature lives; that sight-refreshing green 

Is still the livery she delights to wear, 7 6 ° 

Though sickly samples of the exuberant whole. 

What are the casements lined with creeping herbs, 

The prouder sashes fronted with a range 

Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed, 

The Frenchman's darling ? Are' they not all proofs 765 

That man, immured in cities, still retains 

His inborn inextinguishable thirst 

Of rural scenes, compensating his loss 

By supplemental shifts, the best he may ? 



THE TASK. 99 

The most unfurnished with the means of life, 77° 

And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds 

To range the fields and treat their lungs with air, 

Yet feel the burning instinct; over-head 

Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick, 

And watered duly. There the pitcher stands 775 

A fragment, and the spoutless teapot there; 

Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets 

The country, with what ardour he contrives 

A peep at nature, when he can no more. 

Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease 7 8 ° 

And contemplation, heart-consoling joys 
And harmless pleasures, in the thronged abode 
Of multitudes unknown ! hail, rural life ! 
Address himself who will to the pursuit 
Of honours, or emolument, or fame, 7 8 5 

I shall not add myself to such a chase, 
Thwart his attempts, or envy his success. 
Some must be great. Great offices will have 
Great talents : and God gives to every man 
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, 79° 

That lifts him into life, and lets him fall 
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill. 
To the deliverer of an injured land 
He gives a tongue to enlarge upon, a heart 
To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs ; 795 

To monarchs dignity ; to judges sense ; 
To artists ingenuity and skill ; 
To me an unambitious mind, content 
In the low vale of life, that early felt 

A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long 8oo 

Found here that leisure and that ease I wished. 



BOOK V. — THE WINTER MORNING WALK. 

Argument. — A frosty morning — The foddering of cattle — The woodman 
and his dog — The poultry — Whimsical effects of frost at a waterfall — 
The Empress of Russia's palace of ice — Amusements of monarchs — 
War, one of them — Wars, whence — And whence monarchy — The evils 
of it — English and French loyalty contrasted — The Bastile, and a pris- 
oner there — Liberty the chief recommendation of this country — Modern 
patriotism questionable, and why — The perishable nature of the best 
human institutions — Spiritual liberty not perishable — The slavish state 
of man by nature — Deliver him, Deist, if you can — Grace must do it — 
The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated — Their different 
treatment — Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free — His 
relish of the works of God — Address to the Creator. 

'T is morning ; and the sun with ruddy orb 

Ascending, fires the horizon : while the clouds 

That crowd away before the driving wind, 

More ardent as the disk emerges more, 

Resemble most some city in a blaze, • 5 

Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray 

Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, 

And tinging all with his own rosy hue, 

From every herb and every spiry blade 

Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. 10 

Mine, spindling into longitude immense, 

In spite of gravity, and sage remark 

That I myself am but a fleeting shade, 

Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance 

I view the muscular proportioned limb 15 

Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair, 

As they designed to mock me, at my side 

Take step for step ; and as I near approach 

The cottage, walk along the plastered wall, 



THE TASK. 101 

Preposterous sight ! the legs without the man. 20 

The verdure of the plain lies buried deep 

Beneath the dazzling deluge ; and the bents 

And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest, 

Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine 

Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, 25 

And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. 

The cattle mourn in corners where the fence 

Screens them, and seem half-petrified to sleep 

In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait 

Their wonted fodder, not like hungering man, 3° 

Fretful if unsupplied, but silent, meek, 

And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. 

He from the stack carves out the accustomed load, 

Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, 

His broad keen knife into the solid mass ; 35 

Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, 

With such undeviating and even force 

He severs it away : no needless care 

Lest storms should overset the leaning pile 

Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. 40 

Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned 

The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe 

And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, 

From morn to eve his solitary task. 

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears 45 

And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur, 

His dog attends him. Close behind his heel 

Now creeps he slow ; and now with many a frisk 

Wide scampering, snatches up the drifted snow 

With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout ; 5° 

Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy. 

Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl 

Moves right toward the mark ; nor stops for aught, 



102 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

But now and then with pressure of his thumb 

To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube 55 

That fumes beneath his nose : the trailing cloud 

Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. 

Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale, 

Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam 

Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side, 60 

Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call 

The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing, 

And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, 

Conscious, and fearful of too deep a plunge. 

The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves 65 

To seize the fair occasion. Well they eye 

The scattered grain, and thievishly resolved 

To escape the impending famine, often scared 

As oft return, a pert voracious kind. 

Clean riddance quickly made, one only care 7° 

Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, 

Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned 

To sad necessity, the cock foregoes 

His wonted strut, and wading at their head 

With well-considered steps, seems to resent 75 

His altered gait and stateliness retrenched. 

How find the myriads that in summer cheer 

The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs 

Due sustenance, or where subsist they now ? 

Earth yields them nought : the imprisoned worm is safe 80 

Beneath the frozen clod ; all seeds of herbs 

Lie covered close ; and berry-bearing thorns 

That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose) 

Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. 

The long-protracted rigour of the year 85 

Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes 

Ten thousand seek an unmolested end, 



THE TASK. 103 

As instinct prompts, self-buried ere they die. 

The very rooks and daws forsake the fields, 

Where neither grub nor root nor earth-nut now 9° 

Repays their labour more ; and perched aloft 

By the wayside, or stalking in the path, 

Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track, 

Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them 

Of voided pulse or half-digested grain. 95 

The streams are lost amid the splendid blank, 

O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, 

Indurated and fixed, the snowy weight 

Lies undissolved ; while silently beneath, 

And unperceived, the current steals away. ioo 

Not so, where scornful of a check it leaps 

The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, 

And wantons in the pebbly gulf below : 

No frost can bind it there ; its utmost force 

Can but arrest the light and smoky mist 105 

That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. 

And see where it has hung the embroidered banks 

With forms so various, that no powers of art, 

The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene ! 

Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high no 

(Fantastic misarrangement !) on the roof 

Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees 

And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops 

That trickle down the branches, fast congealed, 

Shoot into pillars of pellucid length, 115 

And prop the pile they but adorned before 

Here grotto within grotto safe defies 

The sunbeam ; there embossed and fretted wild, 

The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes 

Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain . 120 

The likeness of some object seen before. 



104 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Thus Nature works as if to mock at Art, 

And in defiance of her rival powers ; 

By these fortuitous and random strokes 

Performing such inimitable feats, 125 

As she with all her rules can never reach. 

Less worthy of applause, though more admired, 

Because a novelty, the work of man, 

Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ ! 

Thy most magnificent and mighty freak, 130 

The wonder of the North. No forest fell 

When thou wouldst build ; no quarry sent its stores, 

To enrich thy walls ; but thou didst hew the floods, 

And make thy marble of the glassy wave. 

In such a palace Aristaeus found 135 

Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale 

Of his lost bees to her maternal ear : 

In such a palace poetry might place 

The armoury of Winter; where his troops, 

The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, 140 

Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, 

And snow that often blinds the traveller's course, 

And wraps him in an unexpected tomb. 

Silently as a dream the fabric rose ; 

No sound of hammer or of saw was there. 145 

Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts 

Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked 

Than water interfused to make them one. 

Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues, 

Illumined every side ; a watery light 15° 

Gleamed through the clear transparency, that seemed 

Another moon new risen, or meteor fallen 

From heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene. 

So stood the brittle prodigy ; though smooth 

And slippery the materials, yet frostbound 155 



THE TASK. 105 

Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within, 

That royal residence might well befit, 

For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths 

Of flowers, that feared no enemy but warmth, 

Blushed on the panels. Mirror needed none 160 

Where all was vitreous; but in order due 

Convivial table and commodious seat 

(What seemed at least commodious seat) were there, 

Sofa and couch and high-built throne august. 

The same lubricity was found in all, 165 

And all was moist to the warm touch ; a scene 

Of evanescent glory, once a stream, 

And soon to slide into a stream again. 

Alas ! 't was but a mortifying stroke 

Of undesigned severity, that glanced 17° 

(Made by a monarch) on her own estate, 

On human grandeur and the courts of kings. 

'T was transient in its nature, as in show 

'T was durable ; as worthless as it seemed 

Intrinsically precious ; to the foot 175 

Treacherous and false ; it smiled, and it was cold. 

Great princes have great playthings. Some have played 
At hewing mountains into men, and some 
At building human wonders mountain high. 
Some have amused the dull sad years of life, 180 

Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad, 
With schemes of monumental fame ; and sought 
By pyramids and mausolean pomp, 
Short-lived themselves, to immortalize their bones. 
Some seek diversion in the tented field, 185 

And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. 
But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, 
Kings would not play at. Nations would do well 
To extort their truncheons from the puny hands 



106 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds 190 

Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, 
Because men suffer it, their toy the world. 

When Babel was confounded, and the great 
Confederacy of projectors wild and vain 
Was split into diversity of tongues, 195 

Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, 
These to the upland, to the valley those, 
God drave asunder, and assigned their lot 
To all the nations. Ample was the boon 
He gave them, in its distribution fair 200 

And equal, and he bade them dwell in peace. 
Peace was awhile their care : they ploughed and sowed, 
And reaped their plenty without grudge or strife. 
But violence can never longer sleep 

Than human passions please. In every heart 205 

Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war ; 
Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze. 
Cain had already shed a brother's blood ; 
The Deluge washed it out, but left unquenched 
The seeds of murder in the breast of man. 210 

Soon, by a righteous judgment, in the line 
Of his descending progeny was found 
The first artificer of death ; the shrewd 
Contriver who first sweated at the forge, 
And forced the blunt and yet unbloodied steel 215 

To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. 
Him, Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times, 
The sword and falchion their inventor claim, 
And the first smith was the first murderer's son. 
His art survived the waters ; and ere long, 220 

When man was multiplied and spread abroad 
In tribes and clans, and had begun to call 
These meadows and that range of hills his own, 



THE TASK. 107 

The tasted sweets of property begat 

Desire of more ; and industry in some, 225 

To improve and cultivate their just demesne, 

Made others covet what they saw so fair. 

Thus war began on earth ; these fought for spoil, 

And those in self-defence. Savage at first 

The onset, and irregular. At length 230 

One eminent above the rest, for strength, 

For stratagem, or courage, or for all, 

Was chosen leader ; him they served in war, 

And him in peace, for sake of warlike deeds 

Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare ? 235 

Or who so worthy to control themselves 

As he whose prowess had subdued their foes ? 

Thus war affording field for the display 

Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace, 

Which have their exigencies too, and call 240 

For skill in government, at length made king. 

King was a name too proud for man to wear 

With modesty and meekness ; and the crown, 

So dazzling in their eyes who set it on, 

Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound. 245 

It is the abject property of most, 

That being parcel of the common mass, 

And destitute of means to raise themselves, 

They sink and settle lower than they need. 

They know not what it is to feel within 250 

A comprehensive faculty that grasps 

Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, 

Almost without an effort, plans too vast 

For their conception, which they cannot move. 

Conscious of impotence, they soon grow drunk 255 

With gazing, when they see an able man 

Step forth to notice ; and besotted thus, 



108 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Build him a pedestal, and say, " Stand there, 

And be our admiration and our praise." 

They roll themselves before him in the dust, 260 

Then most deserving in their own account 

When most extravagant in his applause, 

As if exalting him they raised themselves. 

Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound 

And sober judgment, that he is but man, 265 

They demi-deify and fume him so, 

That in due season he forgets it too. 

Inflated and astrut with self-conceit, 

He gulps the windy diet, and ere long, 

Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks 270 

The world was made in vain, if not for him. 

Thenceforth they are his cattle : drudges born 

To bear his burdens ; drawing in his gears 

And sweating in his service ; his caprice 

Becomes the soul that animates them all. 275 

He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives, 

Spent in the purchase of renown for him, 

An easy reckoning, and they think the same. 

Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings 

Were burnished into heroes, and became 280 

The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp, 

Storks among frogs, that have but croaked and died. 

Strange, that such folly as lifts bloated man 

To eminence fit only for a god 

Should ever drivel out of human lips, 285 

Even in the cradled weakness of the world ! 

Still stranger much, that when at length mankind 

Had reached the sinewy firmness of their youth, 

And could discriminate and argue well 

On subjects more mysterious, they were yet 290 

Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear 



THE TASK. 109 

And quake before the gods themselves had made ! 

But above measure strange, that neither proof 

Of sad experience, nor examples set 

By some whose patriot virtue has prevailed, 295 

Can even now, when they are grown mature 

In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds 

Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest ! 

Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone 

To reverence what is ancient, and can plead 300 

A course of long observance for its use, 

That even servitude, the worst of ills, 

Because delivered down from sire to son, 

Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. 

But is it fit, or can it bear the shock 3°5 

Of rational discussion, that a man, 

Compounded and made up like other men 

Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust 

And folly in as ample measure meet 

As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules, 3 10 

Should be a despot absolute, and boast 

Himself the only freeman of his land ? 

Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will, 

Wage war, with any or with no pretence 

Of provocation given or wrong sustained, 3 X 5 

And force the beggarly last doit, by means 

That his own humour dictates, from the clutch 

Of poverty, that thus he may procure 

His thousands, weary of penurious life, 

A splendid opportunity to die ? 3 20 

Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old 

Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees 

In politic convention) put your trust 

In the shadow of a bramble, and reclined 

In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch, 3 2 5 



110 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway, 

Where find ye passive fortitude ? Whence springs 

Your self-denying zeal that holds it good 

To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang 

His thorns with streamers of continual praise ? 33° 

We too are friends to loyalty. We love 

The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, 

And reigns content within them : him we serve 

Freely and with delight, who leaves us free : 

But recollecting still that he is man, 335 

We trust him not too far. King though he be, 

And king in England too, he may be weak, 

And vain enough to be ambitious still, 

May exercise amiss his proper powers, 

Or covet more than freemen choose to grant : 34° 

Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, 

To administer, to guard, to adorn the State, 

But not to warp or change it. We are his, 

To serve him nobly in the common cause, 

True to the death, but not to be his slaves. 345 

Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love 

Of kings, between your loyalty and ours : 

We love the man, the paltry pageant you ; 

We the chief patron of the commonwealth, 

You the regardless author of its woes ; 35° 

We, for the sake of liberty, a king, 

You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake. 

Our love is principle, and has its root 

In reason, is judicious, manly, free ; 

Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, 355 

And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. 

Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, 

Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish, 

I would not be a king to be beloved 



THE TASK. Ill 

Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning praise, 3 6 ° 

Where love is mere attachment to the throne, 
Not to the man who fills it as he ought. 

Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will 
Of a superior, he is never free. 

Who lives, and is not weary of a life 3 6 5 

Exposed to manacles, deserves them well. 
The State that strives for liberty, though foiled, 
And forced to abandon what she bravely sought, 
Deserves at least applause for her attempt, 
And pity for her loss. But that 's a cause 37° 

Not often unsuccessful ; power usurped 
Is weakness when opposed ; conscious of wrong, 
'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. 
But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought 
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess 375 

All that the contest calls for ; spirit, strength, 
The scorn of danger, and united hearts, 
The surest presage of the good they seek. 

Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more 
To France than all her losses and defeats, 3 8 ° 

Old or of later date, by sea or land, 
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old 
Which God avenged on Pharaoh — the Bastille. 
Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts, 
Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair, 3 8 5 

That monarchs have supplied from age to age 
With music such as suits their sovereign ears, 
The sighs and groans of miserable men ! 
There 's not an English heart that would not leap 
To hear that ye were fallen at last; to know 39° 

That even our enemies, so oft employed 
In forging chains for us, themselves were free. 
For he who values liberty confines 



112 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

His zeal for her predominance within 

No narrow bounds; her cause engages him 395 

Wherever pleaded. 'T is the cause of man. 

There dwell the most forlorn of human kind, 

Immured though unaccused, condemned untried, 

Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape. 

There, like the visionary emblem seen 400 

By him of Babylon, life stands a stump, 

And, filleted about with hoops of brass, 

Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are gone. 

To count the hour-bell, and expect no change ; 

And ever as the sullen sound is heard, 4°5 

Still to reflect, that though a joyless note 

To him whose moments all have one dull pace, 

Ten thousand rovers in the world at large 

Account it music; that it summons some 

To theatre or jocund feast or ball; 4 T ° 

The wearied hireling finds it a release 

From labour; and the lover, who has chid 

Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke 

Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight — 

To fly for refuge from distracting thought 4 X 5 

To such amusements as ingenious woe 

Contrives, hard shifting and without her tools — 

To read engraven on the mouldy walls, 

In staggering types, his predecessor's tale, 

A sad memorial, and subjoin his own — 4 20 

To turn purveyor to an overgorged 

And bloated spider, till the pampered pest 

Is made familiar, watches his approach, 

Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend — 

To wear out time in numbering to and fro 425 

The studs that thick emboss his iron door, 

Then downward, and then upward, then aslant, 



THE TASK 113 

And then alternate, with a sickly hope 

By dint of change to give his tasteless task 

Some relish, till the sum exactly found 43° 

In all directions, he begins again: — 

Oh comfortless existence ! hemmed around 

With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel 

And beg for exile, or the pangs of death ? 

That man should thus encroach on fellow-man, 435 

Abridge him of his just and native rights, 

Eradicate him, tear him from his hold 

Upon the endearments of domestic life 

And social, nip his fruitfulness and use, 

And doom him for perhaps a heedless word 44° 

To barrenness, and solitude, and tears, 

Moves indignation, makes the name of king 

(Of king whom such prerogative can please) 

As dreadful as the Manichean God, 

Adored through fear, strong only to destroy. 445 

'T is liberty alone that gives the flower 
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, 
And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 
Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 

Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes 45° 

Their progress in the road of science ; blinds 
The eyesight of discovery, and begets, 
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind 
Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 

To be the tenant of man's noble form. 455 

Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art, 
With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed 
By public exigence till annual food 
Fails for the craving hunger of the State, 
Thee I account still happy, and the chief 460 

Among the nations, seeing thou art free, 



114 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

My native nook of earth ! Thy clime is rude, 

Replete with vapours, and disposes much 

All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine ; 

Thine unadulterate manners are less soft 465 

And plausible than social life requires, 

And thou hast need of discipline and art 

To give thee what politer France receives 

From nature's bounty — that humane address 

And sweetness, without which no pleasure is 47° 

In converse, either starved by cold reserve, 

Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl ; 

Yet being free I love thee : for the sake 

Of that one feature can be well content, 

Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art, 475 

To seek no sublunary rest beside. 

But once enslaved, farewell ! I could endure 

Chains nowhere patiently, and chains at home, 

Where I am free by birthright, not at all. 

Then what were left of roughness in the grain 4 8 ° 

Of British natures, wanting its excuse 

That it belongs to freemen, would disgust 

And shock me. I should then with double pain 

Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime ; 

And if I must bewail the blessing lost 485 

For which our Hampdens and our Sydneys bled, 

I would at least bewail it under skies 

Milder, among a people less austere, 

In scenes which, having never known me free, 

Would not reproach me with the loss I felt. 49° 

Do I forebode impossible events, 

And tremble at vain dreams ? Heaven grant I may ! 

But the age of virtuous politics is past, 

And we are deep in that of cold pretence. 

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere, 495 



THE TASK. 115 

And we too wise to trust them. He that takes 

Deep in his soft credulity the stamp 

Designed by loud declaimers on the part 

Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust, 

Incurs derision for his easy faith 500 

And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough : 

For when was public virtue to be found 

Where private was not ? Can he love the whole 

Who loves no part ? He be a nation's friend 

Who is, in truth, the friend of no man there ? 505 

Can he be strenuous in his country's cause 

Who slights the charities for whose dear sake 

That country, if at all, must be beloved ? 

'Tis therefore sober and good men are sad 
For England's glory, seeing it wax pale 5 10 

And sickly, while her champions wear their hearts 
So loose to private duty, that no brain, 
Healthful and undisturbed by factious fumes, 
Can dream them trusty to the general weal. 
Such were not they of old, whose tempered blades 5 X 5 

Dispersed the shackles of usurped control, 
And hewed them link from link. Then Albion's sons 
Were sons indeed; they felt a filial heart 
Beat high within them at a mother's wrongs, 
And shining each in his domestic sphere, S 2 ° 

Shone brighter still, once called to public view. 
'Tis therefore many, whose sequestered lot 
Forbids their interference, looking on, 
Anticipate perforce some dire event; 

And seeing the old castle of the State, 5 2 5 

That promised once more firmness, so assailed 
That all its tempest-beaten turrets shake, 
Stand motionle^, expectants of its fall. 
AU lhas its date below ; the fatal hour 



116 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Was registered in heaven ere time began. 53° 

We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works 

Die too : the deep foundations that we lay, 

Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains. 

We build with what we deem eternal rock; 

A distant age asks where the fabric stood; 535 

And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, 

The indiscoverable secret sleeps. 

But there is yet a liberty unsung 
By poets, and by senators unpraised, 

Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers 54© 

Of earth and hell confederate take away; 
A liberty which persecution, fraud, 
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind; 
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more. 
'T is liberty of heart, derived from Heaven, 545 

Bought with His blood who gave it to mankind, 
And sealed with the same token. It is held 
By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure 
By the unimpeachable and awful oath 

And promise of a God. His other gifts 550 

All bear the royal stamp that speaks them His, 
And are august, but this transcends them all. 
His other works, the visible display 
Of all-creating energy and might, 

Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the Word 555 

That, finding an interminable space 
Unoccupied, has filled the void so well, 
And made so sparkling what was dark before. 
But these are not his glory. Man, 't is true, 
Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene, 560 

Might well suppose the artificer divine 
Meant it eternal, had He not Himself 
Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is, 



THE TASK. 117 

And still designing a more glorious far, 

Doomed it as insufficient for His praise. 5 6 5 

These therefore are occasional, and pass; 

Formed for the confutation of the fool, 

Whose lying heart disputes against a God; 

That office served, they must be swept away. 

Not so the labours of His love : they shine 57o 

In other heavens than these that we behold, 

And fade not. There is paradise that fears 

No forfeiture, and of its fruits He sends 

Large prelibation oft to saints below. 

Of these the first in order, and the pledge 575 

And confident assurance of the rest, 

Is liberty; a flight into His arms, • 

Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way, 

A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, 

And full immunity from penal woe. 5 8 ° 

Chains are the portion of revolted man, 
Stripes, and a dungeon ; and his body serves 
The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul, 
Opprobrious residence he finds them all. 
Propense his heart to idols, he is held 5 8 5 

In silly dotage on created things, 
Careless of their Creator. And that low 
And sordid gravitation of his powers 
To a vile clod so draws him, with such force 
Resistless, from the centre he should seek, 59° 

That he at last forgets it. All his hopes 
Tend downwards; his ambition is to sink, 
To reach a depth profounder still, and still 
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss 

Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death. 595 

But ere he gain the comfortless repose 
He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul 



118 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

In heaven-renouncing exile, he endures — 

What does he not ? from lusts opposed in vain, 

And self-reproaching conscience. He foresees 600 

The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, 

Fortune and dignity ; the loss of all 

That can ennoble man, and make frail life, 

Short as it is, supportable. Still worse, 

Far worse than all the plagues with which his sins 605 

Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes 

Ages of hopeless misery ; future death, 

And death still future : not an hasty stroke 

Like that which sends him to the dusty grave, 

But unrepealable enduring death. 610 

Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears : 

What none can prove a forgery, may be true ; 

What none but bad men wish exploded, must. 

That scruple checks him. Riot is not loud 

Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst 615 

Of laughter his compunctions are sincere, 

And he abhors the jest by which he shines. 

Remorse begets reform. His master-lust 

Falls first before his resolute rebuke, 

And seems dethroned and vanquished. Peace ensues, 620 

But spurious and short-lived, the puny child 

Of self-congratulating Pride, begot 

On fancied Innocence. Again he falls, 

And fights again ; but finds his best essay 

A presage ominous, portending still 625 

Its own dishonour by a worse relapse, 

Till Nature, unavailing Nature, foiled 

So oft, and wearied in the vain attempt, 

Scoffs at her own performance. Reason now 

Takes part with Appetite, and pleads the cause 630 

Perversely, which of late she so condemned ; 



THE TASK. 119 

With shallow shifts and old devices, worn 
And tattered in the service of debauch, 
Covering his shame from his offended sight. 

" Hath God indeed given appetites to man, 635 

And stored the earth so plenteously with means 
To gratify the hunger of his wish, 
And doth He reprobate, and will He damn, 
The use of His own bounty ? making first 
So frail a kind, and then enacting laws 640 

So strict, that less than perfect must despair ? 
Falsehood ! which whoso but suspects of truth 
Dishonours God, and makes a slave of man. 
Do they themselves, who undertake for hire 
The teacher's office, and dispense at large 645 

Their weekly dole of edifying strains, 
Attend to their own music? Have they faith 
In what, with such solemnity of tone 
And gesture, they propound to our belief? 
Nay, — conduct hath the loudest tongue. The voice 650 
Is but an instrument on which the priest 
May play what tune he pleases. In the deed, 
The unequivocal authentic deed, 
We find sound argument, we read the heart." 

Such reasonings (if that name must needs belong 655 

To excuses in which reason has no part) 
Serve to compose a spirit well inclined 
To live on terms of amity with vice, 
And sin without disturbance. Often urged, 
(As often as, libidinous discourse 66 ° 

Exhausted, he resorts to solemn themes 
Of theological and grave import,) 
They gain at last his unreserved assent; 
Till hardened his heart's temper in the forge 
Of lust, and on the anvil of despair, 665 



120 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

He slights the strokes of conscience. Nothing moves, 

Or nothing much, his constancy in ill ; 

Vain tampering has but fostered his disease ; 

'T is desperate, and he sleeps the sleep of death. 

Haste now, philosopher, and set him free. 670 

Charm the deaf serpent wisely. Make him hear 

Of rectitude and fitness ; moral truth 

How lovely, and the moral sense how sure, 

Consulted and obeyed, to guide his steps 

Directly to the first and only fair. 675 

Spare not in such a cause. Spend all the powers 

Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise ; 

Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand, 

And with poetic trappings grace thy prose, 

Till it outmantle all the pride of verse. — 680 

Ah, tinkling cymbal and high-sounding brass, 

Smitten in vain ! such music cannot charm 

The eclipse that intercepts truth's heavenly beam, 

And chills and darkens a wide wandering soul. 

The still small voice is wanted. He must speak, 685 

Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect, 

Who calls for things that are not, and they come. 

Grace makes the slave a freeman. 'T is a change 
That turns to ridicule the turgid speech 
And stately tone of moralists, who boast, 690 

As if, like him of fabulous renown, 
They had indeed ability to smooth 
The shag of savage nature, and were each 
An Orpheus, and omnipotent in song. 

But transformation of apostate man 695 

From fool to wise, from earthly to divine, 
Is work for Him that made him. He alone, 
And He by means in philosophic eyes 
Trivial and worthy of disdain, achieves 



THE TASK. 121 

The wonder ; humanizing what is brute 700 

In the lost kind, extracting from the lips 
Of asps their venom, overpowering strength 
By weakness, and hostility by love. 

Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause 
Bled nobly ; and their deeds, as they deserve, 705 

Receive proud recompense. We give in charge 
Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic Muse, 
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down 
To latest times ; and Sculpture, in her turn, 
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass 7 J o 

To guard them, and to immortalize her trust. 
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, 
To those who, posted at the shrine of truth, 
Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood, 
Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, 7 J 5 

And for a time ensure to his loved land, 
The sweets of liberty and equal laws ; 
But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, 
And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed 
In confirmation of the noblest claim, 7 2( => 

Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, 
To walk with God, to be divinely free, 
To soar, and to anticipate the skies. 
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown 
Till Persecution dragged them into fame, 725 

And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew — 
No marble tells us whither. With their names 
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song ; 
And history, so warm on meaner themes, 
Is cold on this. She execrates indeed 73° 

The tyranny that doomed them to the fire, 
But gives the glorious sufferers little praise. 

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 



122 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And all are slaves beside. There 's not a chain 

That hellish foes confederate for his harm 735 

Can wind around him, but he casts it of! 

With as much ease as Samson his green withes. 

He looks abroad into the varied field 

Of nature, and though poor perhaps compared 

With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 74° 

Calls the delightful scenery all his own. 

His are the mountains, and the valleys his, 

And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy 

With a propriety that none can feel, 

But who, with filial confidence inspired, 745 

Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, 

And smiling say — " My Father made them all ! " 

Are they not his by a peculiar right, 

And by an emphasis of interest his, 

W T hose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, 75° 

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind 

With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love 

That planned, and built, and still upholds a world 

So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man ? 

Yes — ye may fill your garners, ye that reap 755 

The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good 

In senseless riot ; but ye will not find 

In feast or in the chase, in song or dance, 

A liberty like his, who unimpeached 

Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, 760 

Appropriates nature as his Father's work, 

And has a richer use of yours than you. 

He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth 

Of no mean city, planned or ere the hills 

Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea 765 

With all his roaring multitude of waves. 

Flis freedom is the same in every State, 



THE TASK. 123 

And no condition of this changeful life, 

So manifold in cares, whose every day 

Brings its own evil with it, makes it less: 77° 

For he has wings that neither sickness, pain, 

Nor penury, can cripple or confine. 

No nook so narrow but he spreads them there 

With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds 

His body bound, but knows not what a range 775 

His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain, 

And that to bind him is a vain attempt 

Whom God delights in, and in whom He dwells. 

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste 
His works. Admitted once to His embrace, 7 8 ° 

Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before ; 
Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine heart, 
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight, 
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. 
Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone 7 8 5 

And eyes intent upon the scanty herb 
It yields them ; or, recumbent on its brow, 
Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread 
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away 
From inland regions to the distant main. 79° 

Man views it and admires, but rests content 
With what he views. The landscape has his praise, 
But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed 
The paradise he sees, he finds it such ; 

And such well-pleased to find it, asks no more. 795 

Not so the mind that has been touched from Heaven, 
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught 
To read His wonders, in whose thought the world, 
Fair as it is, existed ere it was. 

Not for its own sake merely, but for His 8 °o 

Much more who fashioned it, he gives it praise ; 



124 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Praise that from earth resulting, as it ought, 

To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once 

Its only just proprietor in Him. 

The soul that sees Him, or receives sublimed 805 

New faculties, or learns at least to employ 

More worthily the powers she owned before, 

Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze 

Of ignorance, till then she overlooked, 

A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms 810 

Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute, 

The unambiguous footsteps of the God 

Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, 

And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds. 

Much conversant with Heaven, she often holds 815 

With those fair ministers of light to man 

That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, 

Sweet conference ; enquires what strains were they 

With which heaven rang, when every star, in haste 

To gratulate the new-created earth, 820 

Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God 

Shouted for joy. — " Tell me, ye shining hosts 

That navigate a sea that knows no storms, 

Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, 

If from your elevation, whence ye view 825 

Distinctly scenes invisible to man, 

And systems of whose birth no tidings yet 

Have reached this nether world, ye spy a race 

Favoured as ours, transgressors from the womb, 

And hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise, 830 

And to possess a brighter heaven than yours ? 

As one who long detained on foreign shores 

Pants to return, and when he sees afar 

His country's weather-bleached and battered rocks 

From the green wave emerging, darts an eye 835 



THE TASK. 125 

Radiant with joy towards the happy land, 

So I with animated hopes behold, 

And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, 

That show like beacons in the blue abyss, 

Ordained to guide the embodied spirit home, 840 

From toilsome life to never-ending rest. 

Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires 

That give assurance of their own success, 

And that, infused from Heaven, must thither tend." 

So reads he nature whom the lamp of truth 845 

Illuminates. Thy lamp, mysterious Word ! 
Which whoso sees, no longer wanders lost, 
With intellects bemazed in endless doubt, 
But runs the road of wisdom. Thou hast built, 
With means that were not till by thee employed, 850 

Worlds that had never been hadst Thou in strength 
Been less, or less benevolent than strong. 
They are thy witnesses, who speak thy power 
And goodness infinite, but speak in ears 
That hear not or receive not their report. 855 

In vain thy creatures testify of thee 
Till Thou proclaim thyself. Theirs is indeed 
A teaching voice ; but 't is the praise of thine 
That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn, 
And with the boon gives talents for its use. 860 

Till Thou art heard, imaginations vain 
Possess the heart, and fables false as hell, 
Yet deemed oracular, lure down to death 
The uninformed and heedless souls of men. 
We give to Chance, blind Chance, ourselves as blind, 865 
The glory of thy work, which yet appears 
Perfect and unimpeachable of blame, 
Challenging human scrutiny, and proved 
Then skilful most when most severely judged. 



126 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

But Chance is not ; or is not where Thou reignest : 870 

Thy Providence forbids that fickle power 

(If power she be that works but to confound) 

To mix the wild vagaries with thy laws. 

Yet thus we dote, refusing, while we can 

Instruction, and inventing to ourselves 875 

Gods such as guilt makes welcome ; gods that sleep, 

Or disregard our follies, or that sit 

Amused spectators of this bustling stage. 

Thee we reject, unable to abide 

Thy purity, till pure as Thou art pure, 880 

Made such by thee, we love thee for that cause 

For which we shunned and hated thee before. 

Then we are free : then liberty like day 

Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from heaven 

Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. 885 

A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not 

Till Thou hast touched them ; 't is the voice of song, 

A loud Hosanna sent from all thy works, 

Which he that hears it with a shout repeats, 

And adds his rapture to the general praise. 890 

In that blest moment, Nature throwing wide 

Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile 

The Author of her beauties, who, retired 

Behind his own creation, works unseen 

By the impure, and hears his power denied. 895 

Thou art the source and centre of all minds, 

Their only point of rest, Eternal Word ! 

From thee departing, they are lost and rove 

At random without honour, hope, or peace. 

From thee is all that soothes the life of man, 9 00 

His high endeavour, and his glad success, 

His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. 



THE TASK. 127 

But oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good ! 

Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown ! 

Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor; 9°5 

And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away. 



BOOK VI. — THE WINTER WALK AT NOON. 

Argument. — Bells at a distance — Their effect — A fine noon in winter — 
A sheltered walk — Meditation better than books — Our familiarity with 
the course of nature makes it appear less wonderful than it is — The 
transformation that spring effects in a shrubbery described — A mistake 
concerning the course of nature corrected — God maintains it by an 
unremitted act — The amusements fashionable at this hour of the day 
reproved — Animals happy, a delightful sight — Origin of cruelty to 
animals — That it is a great crime proved from Scripture — That proof 
illustrated by a tale — A line drawn between the lawful and unlawful 
destruction of them — Their good and useful properties insisted on — 
Apology for the encomiums bestowed by the author upon animals — 
Instances of man's extravagant praise of man — The groans of the crea- 
tion shall have an end — View taken of the restoration of all things — 
An invocation and an invitation of Him who shall bring it to pass — The 
retired man vindicated from the charge of uselessness — Conclusion. 

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds, 

And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased 

With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave : 

Some chord in unison with what we hear 

Is touched within us, and the heart replies. 

How soft the music of those village bells 

Falling at intervals upon the ear 

In cadence sweet ! now dying all away, 

Now pealing loud again, and louder still, 

Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on. 

With easy force it opens all the cells 

Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard 

A kindred melody, the scene recurs, 

And with it all its pleasures and its pains. 

Such comprehensive views the spirit takes, 

That in a few short moments I retrace 

(As in a map the voyager his course) 

The windings of my way through many years. 



THE TASK. 129 

Short as in retrospect the journey seems, 

It seemed not always short ; the rugged path, 20 

And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn, 

Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length. 

Yet feeling present evils, while the past 

Faintly impress the mind, or not at all, 

How readily we wish time spent revoked, 2 5 

That we might try the ground again, where once 

(Through inexperience as we now perceive) 

We missed that happiness we might have found ! 

Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend, 

A father, whose authority, in show 3° 

When most severe, and mustering all its force, 

Was but the graver countenance of love ; 

Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower, 

And utter now and then an awful voice, 

But had a blessing in its darkest frown, 35 

Threatening at once and nourishing the plant. 

We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand 

That reared us. At a thoughtless age allured 

By every gilded folly, we renounced 

His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent 4° 

That converse which we now in vain regret. 

How gladly would the man recall to life 

The boy's neglected sire ! a mother too, 

That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still, 

Might he demand them at the gates of death. 45 

Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed 

The playful humour ; he could now endure 

(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears) 

And feel a parent's presence no restraint. 

But not to understand a treasure's worth 5° 

Till time has stolen away the slighted good, 

Is cause of half the poverty we feel, 



130 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And makes the world the wilderness it is. 

The few that pray at all pray oft amiss, 

And, seeking grace to improve the prize they hold, 55 

Would urge a wiser suit than asking more. 

The night was winter in his roughest mood, 
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon, 
Upon the southern side of the slant hills, 
And where the woods fence off the northern blast, 6o 

The season smiles, resigning all its rage, 
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue 
Without a cloud, and white without a speck 
The dazzling splendour of the scene below. 
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale, 65 

And through the trees I view the embattled tower 
Whence all the music. I again perceive 
The soothing influence of the wafted strains, 
And settle in soft musings as I tread 

The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, 7° 

Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. 
The roof, though moveable through all its length 
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed, 
And intercepting in their silent fall 

The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. 75 

No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. 
The redbreast warbles still, but is content 
With slender notes, and more than half suppressed : 
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light 
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes 80 

From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, 
That tinkle in the withered leaves below. 
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, 
Charms more than silence. Meditation here 
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart 85 

May give a useful lesson to the head, 



THE TASK. 131 

And learning wiser grow without his books. 

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, 

Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells 

In heads replete with thoughts of other men, 9° 

Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, 

The mere materials with which wisdom builds, 

Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, 

Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. 95 

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. 

Books are not seldom talismans- and spells, 

By which the magic art of shrewder wits 

Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. I0 ° 

Some to the fascination of a name 

Surrender judgment hoodwinked. Some the style 

Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds 

Of error leads them, by a tune entranced. 

While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear 105 

The insupportable fatigue of thought, 

And swallowing therefore, without pause or choice, 

The total grist unsifted, husks and all. 

But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course 

Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, no 

And sheepwalks populous with bleating lambs, 

And lanes in which the primrose ere her time 

Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root, 

Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and Truth, 

Not shy as in the world, and to be won 115 

By slow solicitation, seize at once 

The roving thought, and fix it on themselves. 

What prodigies can power divine perform 
More grand than it produces year by year, 
And all in sight of inattentive man? 120 



132 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Familiar with the effect we slight the cause, 

And in the constancy of nature's course, 

The regular return of genial months, 

And renovation of a faded world, 

See nought to wonder at. Should God again, 125 

As once in Gibeon, interrupt the race 

Of the undeviating and punctual sun, 

How would the world admire ! But speaks it less 

An agency divine, to make him know 

His moment when to sink and when to rise, I 3° 

Age after age, than to arrest his course ? 

All we behold is miracle, but seen 

So duly, all is miracle in vain. 

Where now the vital energy that moved, 

While summer was, the pure and subtle lymph 135 

Through the imperceptible meandering veins 

Of leaf and flower? It sleeps: and the icy touch 

Of unproliflc winter has impressed 

A cold stagnation on the intestine tide. 

But let the months go round, a few short months, Mo 

And all shall be restored. These naked shoots, 

Barren as lances, among which the wind 

Makes wintry music, sighing as it goes, 

Shall put their graceful foliage on again, 

And more aspiring, and with ampler spread, 145 

Shall boast new charms, and more than they have lost. 

Then each, in its peculiar honours clad, 

Shall publish, even to the distant eye, 

Its family and tribe. Laburnum rich 

In streaming gold ; Syringa ivory pure ; 15° 

The scentless and the scented Rose, this red 

And of an humbler growth, the other tall, 

And throwing up into the darkest gloom 

Of neighbouring Cypress, or more sable Yew, 



THE TASK. 133 

Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf 155 

That the wind severs from the broken wave ; 

The Lilac various in array, now white, 

Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set 

With purple spikes pyramidal, as if 

Studious of ornament, yet unresolved 160 

Which hue she most approved, she chose them all ; 

Copious of flowers the Woodbine, pale and wan, 

But well compensating her sickly looks 

With never cloying odours, early and late ; 

Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm 165 

Of flowers like flies clothing her slender rods 

That scarce a leaf appears ; Mezereon too, 

Though leafless, well attired, and thick beset 

With blushing wreaths investing every spray ; 

Althaea with the purple eye ; the Broom, 170 

Yellow and bright as bullion unalloyed 

Her blossoms ; and luxuriant above all 

The Jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 

The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf 

Makes more conspicuous and illumines more 175 

The bright profusion of her scattered stars. — 

These have been, and these shall be in their day ; 

And all this uniform uncoloured scene 

Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, 

And flush into variety again. 180 

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, 

Is Nature's progress when she lectures man 

In heavenly truth ; evincing, as she makes 

The grand transition, that there lives and works 

A soul in all things, and that soul is God. l8 5 

The beauties of the wilderness are His, 

That make so gay the solitary place 

Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms, 



134 SELECTIONS EROM COWPER. 

That cultivation glories in, are His. 

He sets the bright procession on its way, 190 

And marshals all the order of the year ; 

He marks the bounds which winter may not pass, 

And blunts his pointed fury ; in its case, 

Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ 

Uninjured, with inimitable art ; 195 

And, ere one flowery season fades and dies, 

Designs the blooming wonders of the next. 

Some say that in the origin of things, 
When all creation started into birth, 

The infant elements received a law 200 

From which they swerve not since. That under force 
Of that controlling ordinance they move, 
And need not His immediate hand who first 
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now. 
Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God 205 

The encumbrance of His own concerns, and spare 
The great Artificer of all that moves 
The stress of a continual act, the pain 
Of unremitted vigilance and care, 

As too laborious and severe a task. 210 

So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems, 
To span Omnipotence, and measure might 
That knows no measure by the scanty rule 
And standard of his own, that is to-day, 
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down. 215 

But how should matter occupy a charge, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law 
So vast in its demands, unless impelled 
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, 
And under pressure of some conscious cause ? 220 

The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused, 
Sustains and is the life of all that lives. 



THE TASK. 135 

Nature is but a name for an effect 

Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire 

By which the mighty process is maintained, 225 

Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight 

Slow-circling ages are as transient days ; 

Whose work is without labour ; whose designs 

No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts ; 

And whose beneficence no charge exhausts. 230 

Him blind antiquity profaned, not served, 

With self-taught rites, and under various names, 

Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan, 

And Flora and Vertumnus ; peopling earth 

With tutelary goddesses and gods 235 

That were not ; and commending as they would 

To each some province, garden, field or grove. 

But all are under One. One spirit — His 

Who wore the plaited thorns with bleeding brows — 

Rules universal nature. Not a flower 240 

But shows some touch in freckle, streak or stain, 

Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires 

Their balmy odours and imparts their hues, 

And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, 

In grains as countless as the seaside sands, 245 

The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth. 

Happy who walks with Him ! whom what he finds 

Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower, 

Or what he views of beautiful or grand 

In nature, from the broad majestic oak 250 

To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, 

Prompts with remembrance of a present God. 

His presence, who made all so fair, perceived, 

Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene 

Is dreary, so with him all seasons please. 255 

Though winter had been none, had man been true, 



136 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And earth be punished for its tenant's sake, 

Yet not in vengeance ; as this smiling sky, 

So soon succeeding such an angry night, 

And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream 260 

Recovering fast its liquid music, prove. 

Who then that has a mind well strung and tuned 
To contemplation, and within his reach 
A scene so friendly to his favourite task, 
Would waste attention at the chequered board, 265 

His host of wooden warriors to and fro 
Marching and countermarching, with an eye 
As fixed as marble, with a forehead ridged 
And furrowed into storms, and with a hand 
Trembling, as if eternity were hung 270 

In balance on his conduct of a pin? 
Nor envies he aught more their idle sport 
Who pant with application misapplied 
To trivial toys, and, pushing ivory balls 
Across a velvet level, feel a joy 275 

Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds 
Its destined goal of difficult access. 
Nor deems he wiser him who gives his noon 
To miss, the mercer's plague, from shop to shop 
Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks 280 

The polished counter, and approving none, 
Or promising with smiles to call again. 
Nor him who, by his vanity seduced, 
And soothed into a dream that he discerns 
The difference of a Guido from a daub, 285 

Frequents the crowded auction. Stationed there 
As duly as the Langford of the show, 
With glass at eye, and catalogue in hand, 
And tongue accomplished in the fulsome cant 
And pedantry that coxcombs learn with ease, 290 



THE TASK. 137 

Oft as the price-deciding hammer falls, 
He notes it in his book, then raps his box, 
Swears 'tis a bargain, rails at his hard fate 
That he has let it pass — but never bids. 

Here unmolested, through whatever sign 295 

The sun proceeds, I wander ; neither mist, 
Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, 
Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. 
Even in the spring and playtime of the year, 
That calls the unwonted villager abroad 3 00 

With all her little ones, a sportive train, 
To gather kingcups in the yellow mead, 
And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick 
A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, 
These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, 3°5 

Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, 
Scarce shuns me ; and the stockdove unalarmed 
Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends 
His long love-ditty for my near approach. 
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm 3 10 

That age or injury has hollowed deep, 
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves 
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth 
To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun, 
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play. 3 : 5 

He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird, 
Ascends the neighbouring beech ; there whisks his brush, 
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud, 
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm, 
And anger insignificantly fierce. 3 20 

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit 
For human fellowship, as being void 
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike 
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased 



13S SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

With sight of animals enjoying life, 3 2 5 

Nor feels their happiness augment his own. 

The bounding fawn that darts across the glade 

When none pursues, through mere delight of heart, 

And spirits buoyant with excess of glee ; 

The horse, as wanton and almost as fleet, 33° 

That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, 

Then stops and snorts, and throwing high his heels, 

Starts to the voluntary race again ; 

The very kine that gambol at high noon, 

The total herd receiving first from one 335 

That leads the dance a summons to be gay, 

Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth 

Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent 

To give such act and utterance as they may 

To ecstacy too big to be suppressed ; — 34° 

These, and a thousand images of bliss, 

With which kind Nature graces every scene 

Where cruel man defeats not her design, 

Impart to the benevolent, who wish 

All that are capable of pleasure pleased, 345 

A far superior happiness to theirs, 

The comfort of a reasonable joy. 

Man scarce had risen, obedient to His call 
Who formed him from the dust, his future grave, 
When he was crowned as never king was since. 35° 

God set the diadem upon his head, 
And angel choirs attended. Wondering stood 
The new-made monarch, while before him passed, 
All happy, and all perfect in their kind, 
The creatures, summoned from their various haunts 355 

To see their sovereign, and confess his sway. 
Vast was his empire, absolute his power, 
Or bounded only by a law whose force 



THE TASK. 139 

'T was his sublimest privilege to feel 

And own, the law of universal love. 3 6 ° 

He ruled with meekness, they obeyed with joy ; 

No cruel purpose lurked within his heart, 

And no distrust of his intent in theirs. 

So Eden was a scene of harmless sport, 

Where kindness on his part who ruled the whole 3 6 5 

Begat a tranquil confidence in all, 

And fear as yet was not, nor cause for fear. 

But sin marred all ; and the revolt of man, 

That source of evils not exhausted yet, 

Was punished with revolt of his from him. zi° 

Garden of God, how terrible the change 

Thy groves and lawns then witnessed ! Every heart, 

Each animal of every name, conceived 

A jealousy and an instinctive fear, 

And, conscious of some danger, either fled 375 

Precipitate the loathed abode of man, 

Or growled defiance in such angry sort, 

As taught him too to tremble in his turn. 

Thus harmony and family accord 

Were driven from Paradise ; and in that hour 3 8 ° 

The seeds of cruelty, that since have swelled 

To such gigantic and enormous growth, 

Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil. 

Hence date the persecution and the pain 

That man inflicts on all inferior kinds, 3^5 

Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport, 

To gratify the frenzy of his wrath, 

Or his base gluttony, are causes good 

And just in his account, why bird and beast 

Should suffer torture, and the streams be dyed 39° 

With blood of their inhabitants impaled. 

Earth groans beneath the burden of a war 



140 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Waged with defenceless innocence, while he, 

Not satisfied to prey on all around, 

Adds tenfold bitterness to death by pangs 395 

Needless, and first torments ere he devours. 

Now happiest they that occupy the scenes 

The most remote from his abhorred resort, 

Whom once, as delegate of God on earth, 

They feared, and as His perfect image loved. 400 

The wilderness is theirs, with all its caves, 

Its hollow glens, its thickets, and its plains 

Unvisited by man. There they are free, 

And howl and roar as likes them, uncontrolled, 

Nor ask his leave to slumber or to play. 4°5 

Woe to the tyrant, if he dare intrude 

Within the confines of their wild domain : 

The lion tells him, " I am monarch here ! " 

And if he spare him, spares him on the terms 

Of royal mercy, and through generous scorn 410 

To rend a victim trembling at his foot. 

In measure, as by force of instinct drawn, 

Or by necessity constrained, they live 

Dependent upon man, those in his fields, 

These at his crib, and some beneath his roof. 415 

They prove too often at how dear a rate 

He sells protection. Witness, at his foot, 

The spaniel dying for some venial fault, 

Under dissection of the knotted scourge ; 

Witness, the patient ox, with stripes and yells 4 2 ° 

Driven to the slaughter, goaded, as he runs, 

To madness, while the savage at his heels 

Laughs at the frantic sufferer's fury spent 

Upon the guiltless passenger o'erthrown. 

He too is witness, noblest of the train 425 

That wait on man, the flight-performing horse : 



THE TASK. 141 

With unsuspecting readiness he takes 

His murderer on his back, and pushed all day, 

With bleeding sides and flanks that heave for life, 

To the far-distant goal, arrives and dies. 43° 

So little mercy shows who needs so much! 

Does law, so jealous in the cause of man, 

Denounce no doom on the delinquent ? None. 

He lives, and o'er his brimming beaker boasts 

(As if barbarity were high desert) 435 

The inglorious feat, and clamorous in praise 

Of the poor brute, seems wisely to suppose 

The honours of his matchless horse his own. 

But many a crime deemed innocent on earth 

Is registered in heaven ; and these, no doubt, 44° 

Have each their record, with a curse annexed. 

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, 

But God will never. When He charged the Jew 

To assist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise ; 

And when the bush-exploring boy that seized 445 

The young, to let the parent bird go free ; 

Proved He not plainly that His meaner works 

Are yet His care, and have an interest all, 

All, in the universal Father's love ? 

On Noah, and in him on all mankind, 45° 

The charter was conferred, by which we hold 

The flesh of animals in fee, and claim 

O'er all we feed on, power of life and death. 

But read the instrument, and mark it well : 

The oppression of a tyrannous control 455 

Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield 

Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous through sin, 

Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute. 

The Governor of all, Himself to all 
So bountiful, in whose attentive ear 460 



142 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

The unfledged raven and the lion's whelp 

Plead not in vain for pity on the pangs 

Of hunger unassuaged, has interposed, 

Not seldom, His avenging arm, to smite 

The injurious trampler upon nature's law, 465 

That claims forbearance even for a brute. 

He hates the hardness of a Balaam's heart; 

And prophet as he was, he might not strike 

The blameless animal, without rebuke, 

On which he rode. Her opportune offence 47° 

Saved him, or the unrelenting seer had died. 

He sees that human equity is slack 

To interfere, though in so just a cause, 

And makes the task His own : inspiring dumb 

And helpless victims with a sense so keen 475 

Of injury, with such knowledge of their strength 

And such sagacity to take revenge, 

That oft the beast has seemed to judge the man. 

An ancient, not a legendary tale, 

By one of sound intelligence rehearsed, 4 8 o 

(If such who plead for Providence may seem 

In modern eyes,) shall make the doctrine clear. 

Where England, stretched towards the setting sun, 
Narrow and long, o'erlooks the western wave, 
Dwelt young Misagathus ; a scorner he 4 8 5 

Of God and goodness, atheist in ostent, 
Vicious in act, in temper savage-fierce. 
He journeyed; and his chance was as he went 
To join a traveller, of far different note, 
Evander, famed for piety, for years 49° 

Deserving honour, but for wisdom more. 
Fame had not left the venerable man 
A stranger to the manners of the youth, 
Whose face too was familiar to his view. 



THE TASK. 143 

Their way was on the margin of the land, 495 

O'er the green summit of the rocks whose base 

Beats back the roaring surge, scarce heard so high. 

The charity that warmed his heart was moved 

At sight of the man-monster. With a smile 

Gentle, and affable, and full of grace, 5 00 

As fearful of offending whom he wished 

Much to persuade, he plied his ear with truths 

Not harshly thundered forth, or rudely pressed, 

But, like his purpose, gracious, kind, and sweet. 

" And dost thou dream," the impenetrable man 5°5 

Exclaimed, " that me the lullabies of age, 

And fantasies of dotards such as thou, 

Can cheat, or move a moment's fear in me ? 

Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave 

Need no such aids as superstition lends, 5 10 

To steel their hearts against the dread of death." 

He spoke, and to the precipice at hand 

Pushed with a madman's fury. Fancy shrinks, 

And the blood thrills and curdles at the thought 

Of such a gulf as he designed his grave. 5*5 

But though the felon on his back could dare 

The dreadful leap, more rational his steed 

Declined the death, and wheeling swiftly round, 

Or e'er his hoof had pressed the crumbling verge, 

Baffled his rider, saved against his will. S 2 ° 

The frenzy of the brain may be redressed 

By medicine well applied, but without grace 

The heart's insanity admits no cure. 

Enraged the more by what might have reformed 

His horrible intent, again he sought 5 2 5 

Destruction, with a zeal to be destroyed, 

With sounding whip, and rowels died in blood. 

But still in vain. The Providence that meant 



144 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

A longer date to the far nobler beast, 

Spared yet again the ignobler for his sake. 530 

And now, his prowess proved, and his sincere 

Incurable obduracy evinced, 

His rage grew cool ; and pleased perhaps to have earned 

So cheaply the renown of that attempt, 

With looks of some complacence he resumed 535 

His road, deriding much the blank amaze 

Of good Evander, still where he was left 

Fixed motionless, and petrified with dread. 

So on they fared; discourse on other themes 

Ensuing, seemed to obliterate the past, 540 

And tamer far for so much fury shown, 

(As is the course of rash and fiery men,) 

The rude companion smiled, as if transformed. 

But 'twas a transient calm. A storm was near, 

An unsuspected storm. His hour was come. 545 

The impious challenger of power divine 

Was now to learn that Heaven, though slow to wrath, 

Is never with impunity defied. 

His horse, as he had caught his master's mood, 

Snorting, and starting into sudden rage, 55° 

Unbidden, and not now to be controlled, 

Rushed to the cliff, and having reached it, stood. 

At once the shock unseated him : he flew 

Sheer o'er the craggy barrier, and immersed 

Deep in the flood, found, when he sought it not, 555 

The death he had deserved, and died alone. 

So God wrought double justice ; made the fool 

The victim of his own tremendous choice, 

And taught a brute the way to safe revenge. 

I would not enter on my list of friends 5 6 ° 

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
Yet wanting sensibility) the man 



THE TASK. 145 

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 

An inadvertent step may crush the snail 

That crawls at evening in the public path ; 5^5 

But he that has humanity, forewarned, 

Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 

The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, 

And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 

A visitor unwelcome, into scenes 57° 

Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, 

The chamber, or refectory, may die: 

A necessary act incurs no blame. 

Not so when, held within their proper bounds, 

And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 575 

Or take their pastime in the spacious field : 

There they are privileged ; and he that hunts 

Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 

Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, 

Who, when she formed, designed them an abode. 580 

The sum is this : if man's convenience, health, 

Or safety interfere, his rights and claims 

Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 

Else they are all — the meanest things that are — 

As free to live, and to enjoy that life, 5 8 5 

As God was free to form them at the first, 

Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all. 

Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons 

To love it too. The spring-time of our years 

Is soon dishonoured and defiled in most 590 

By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand 

To check them. But, alas ! none sooner shoots, 

If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth, 

Than cruelty, most devilish of them all. 

Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule 595 

And righteous limitation of its act, 



146 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man 

And he that shows none, being ripe in years, 

And conscious of the outrage he commits, 

Shall seek it and not find it in his turn. 600 

Distinguished much by reason, and still more 
By our capacity of grace divine, 
From creatures that exist but for our sake, 
Which, having served us, perish, we are held 
Accountable, and God, some future day, 605 

Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse 
Of what He deems no mean or trivial trust. 
Superior as we are, they yet depend 
Not more on human help than we on theirs. 
Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were given 610 

In aid of our defects. In some are found 
Such teachable and apprehensive parts, 
That man's attainments in his own concerns, 
Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs, 
Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind. 615 

Some show that nice sagacity of smell, 
And read with such discernment, in the port 
And figure of the man, his secret aim, 
That oft we owe our safety to a skill 

We could not teach, and must despair to learn. 620 

But learn we might, if not too proud to stoop 
To quadruped instructors, many a good 
And useful quality, and virtue too, 
Rarely exemplified among ourselves : 

Attachment never to be weaned or changed 625 

By any change of fortune, proof alike 
Against unkindness, absence, and neglect ; 
Fidelity that neither bribe nor threat 
Can move or warp; and gratitude for small 
And trivial favours, lasting as the life, 630 

And glistening even in the dying eye. 



THE TASK. 147 

Man praises man. Desert in arts or arms 
Wins public honour ; and ten thousand sit 
Patiently present at a sacred song, 

Commemoration-mad ; content to hear 635 

(O wonderful effect of music's power !) 
Messiah's eulogy for Handel's sake. 
But less, methinks, than sacrilege might serve — 
(For was it less ? what heathen would have dared 
To strip Jove's statue of his oaken wreath, 640 

And hang it up in honour of a man ?) 
Much less might serve, when all that we design 
Is but to gratify an itching ear, 
And give the day to a musician's praise. 
Remember Handel ? Who that was not born 645 

Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets, 
Or can, the more than Homer of his age ? 
Yes — we remember him ; and while we praise 
A talent so divine, remember too 

That His most holy book from whom it came 650 

Was never meant, was never used before, 
To buckram out the memory of a man. 
But hush ! — the Muse perhaps is too severe, 
And, with a gravity beyond the size 

And measure of the offence, rebukes a deed 655 

Less impious than absurd, and owing more 
To want of judgment than to wrong design. 
So in the chapel of old Ely House, 
When wandering Charles, who meant to be the third, 
Had fled from William, and the news was fresh, 660 

The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce, 
And eke did rear right merrily, two staves, 
Sung to the praise and glory of King George. 

Man praises snan ; and Garrick's memory next, 
When .time hatfe somewhat mellowed it, and made 66 5 



148 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

The idol of our worship while he lived 

The god of our idolatry once more, 

Shall have its altar ; and the world shall go 

In pilgrimage to bow before his shrine. 

The theatre too small shall suffocate 670 

Its squeezed contents, and more than it admits 

Shall sigh at their exclusion, and return 

Ungratified. For there some noble lord 

Shall stuff his shoulders with King Richard's bunch, 

Or wrap himself in Hamlet's inky cloak, 675 

And strut, and storm, and straddle, stamp and stare, 

To show the world how Garrick did not act. 

For Garrick was a worshipper himself; 

He drew the liturgy, and framed the rites 

And solemn ceremonial of the day, 680 

And called the world to worship on the banks 

Of Avon, famed in song. Ah, pleasant proof 

That piety has still in human hearts 

Some place, a spark or two not yet extinct ! 

The mulberry-tree was hung with blooming wreaths ; 685 

The mulberry-tree stood centre of the dance ; 

The mulberry-tree was hymned with dulcet airs ; 

And from his touchwood trunk the mulberry-tree 

Supplied such relics as devotion holds 

Still sacred, and preserves with pious care. m 690 

So 't was a hallowed time : decorum reigned, 

And mirth without offence. No few returned, 

Doubtless, much edified, and all refreshed. 

Man praises man. The rabble all alive 

From tippling benches, cellars, stalls, and styes, 695 

Swarm in the streets. The statesman of the day, 

A pompous and slow-moving pageant, comes. 

Some shout him, and some hang upon his car, 

To gaze in his eyes, and bless him. Maidens wave 



THE TASK. 149 

Their kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy ; 7°o 

While others, not so satisfied, unhorse 

The gilded equipage, and turning loose 

His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve. 

Why ? what has charmed them ? Hath he saved the State ? 

No. Doth he purpose its salvation ? No. 705 

Enchanting novelty, that moon at full, 

That finds out every crevice of the head 

That is not sound and perfect, hath in theirs 

Wrought this disturbance. But the wane is near, 

And his own cattle must suffice him soon. 710 

Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise, 

And dedicate a tribute, in its use 

And just direction sacred, to a thing 

Doomed to the dust, or lodged already there. 

Encomium in old time was poet's work ; 7 I S 

But poets having lavishly long since 

Exhausted all materials of the art, 

The task now falls into the public hand ; 

And I, contented with an humble theme, 

Have poured my stream of panegyric down 720 

The vale of nature, where it creeps and winds 

Among her lovely works with a secure 

And unambitious course, reflecting clear, 

If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes. 

And I am recompensed, and deem the toils 7 2 5 

Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine 

May stand between an animal and woe, 

And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge. 

The groans of nature in this nether world, 
Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end. 73° 

Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, 
Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp, 
The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes. 



150 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh 

Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 735 

Over a sinful world ; and what remains 

Of this tempestuous state of human things 

Is merely as the working of a sea 

Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest : 

For He, whose car the winds are, and the clouds 740 

The dust that waits upon His sultry march, 

When sin hath moved Him, and His wrath is hot, 

Shall visit earth in mercy ; shall descend 

Propitious in His chariot paved with love ; 

And what His storms have blasted and defaced 745 

For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair. 

Sweet is the harp of prophecy ; too sweet 
Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch ; 
Nor can the wonders it records be sung 
To meaner music, and not suffer loss. 750 

But when a poet, or when one like me, 
Happy to rove among poetic flowers, 
Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last 
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair, 
Such is the impulse and the spur he feels 755 

To give it praise proportioned to its worth, 
That not to attempt it, arduous as he deems 
The labour, were a task more arduous still. 

O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, 
Scenes of accomplished bliss ! which who can see, 760 

Though but in distant prospect, and not feel 
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy ? 
Rivers of gladness water all the earth, 
And clothe all climes with beauty. The reproach 
Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field 765 

Laughs with abundance ; and the land once lean, 
Or fertile only in its own disgrace, 



THE TASK. 151 

Exults to see its thistly curse repealed. 

The various seasons woven into one, 

And that one season an eternal spring, 77° 

The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence, 

For there is none to covet, all are full. 

The lion, and the libbard, and the bear, 

Graze with the fearless flocks ; all bask at noon 

Together, or all gambol in the shade 775 

Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. 

Antipathies are none. No foe to man 

Lurks in the serpent now : the mother sees, 

And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand 

Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm, 780 

To stroke his azure neck, or to receive 

The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. 

All creatures worship man, and all mankind 

One Lord, one Father. Error has no place : 

That creeping pestilence is driven away : 7%5 

The breath of heaven has chased it. In the heart 

No passion touches a discordant string, 

But all is harmony and love. Disease 

Is not : the pure and uncontaminate blood 

Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. 79° 

One song employs all nations, and all cry, 

" Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain for us ! " 

The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 

Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops 

From distant mountains catch the flying joy, 795 

Till, nation after nation taught the strain, 

Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. 

Behold the measure of the promise filled ; 

See Salem built, the labour of a God ! 

Bright as a sun the sacred city shines ; 800 

All kingdoms and all princes of the earth 



152 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands 

Flows into her ; unbounded is her joy, 

And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, 

Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there ; 805 

The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, 

And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there. 

Praise is in all her gates ; upon her walls, 

And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, 

Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there 810 

Kneels with the native of the farthest West, 

And ^Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, 

And worships. Her report has travelled forth 

Into all lands. From every clime they come 

To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, 815 

O Sion ! an assembly such as earth 

Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see. 

Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once 
Perfect, and all must be at length restored. 
So God has greatly purposed ; who would else 820 

In His dishonoured works Himself endure 
Dishonour, and be wronged without redress. 
Haste then, and wheel away a shattered world, 
Ye slow-revolving seasons ! we would see 
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet) 825 

A world that does not dread and hate His laws, 
And suffer for its crime ; would learn how fair 
The creature is that God pronounces good, 
How pleasant in itself what pleases Him. 
Here every drop of honey hides a sting, 830 

Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flowers, 
And even the joy that haply some poor heart 
Derives from Heaven, pure as the fountain is, 
Is sullied in the stream ; taking a taint 
From touch of human lips, at best impure. 835 



THE TASK. 153 

Oh for a world in principle as chaste 

As this is gross and selfish ! over which 

Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, 

That govern all things here, shouldering aside 

The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her 840 

To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife 

In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men ; 

Where violence shall never lift the sword, 

Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong, 

Leaving the poor no remedy but tears ; 845 

Where he that fills an office, shall esteem 

The occasion it presents of doing good 

More than the perquisite ; where law shall speak 

Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts 

And equity ; not jealous more to guard 850 

A worthless form than to decide aright ; 

Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse, 

Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace) 

With lean performance ape the work of love. 

Come then, and added to Thy many crowns, 855 

Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, 
Thou who alone art worthy ! It was Thine 
By ancient covenant ere nature's birth, 
And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since, 
And overpaid its value with Thy blood. 860 

Thy saints proclaim Thee King ; and in their hearts 
Thy title is engraven with a pen 
Dipped in the fountain of eternal love. 
Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and Thy delay 
Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see 865 

The dawn of Thy last advent, long-desired, 
Would creep into the bowels of the hills, 
And flee for safety to the falling rocks. 
The very spirit of the world is tired 



154 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Of its own taunting question, asked so long, 870 

" Where is the promise of your Lord's approach ? " 

The infidel has shot his bolts away, 

Till his exhausted quiver yielding none, 

He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, 

And aims them at the shield of Truth again. 875 

The veil is rent, rent too by priestly hands, 

That hides divinity from mortal eyes. 

And all the mysteries to faith proposed, 

Insulted and traduced, are cast aside 

As useless, to the moles and to the bats. 880 

They now are deemed the faithful, and are praised, 

Who, constant only in rejecting Thee, 

Deny Thy Godhead with a martyr's zeal, 

And quit their office for their error's sake. 

Blind, and in love with darkness ! yet even these 885 

Worthy, compared with sycophants, who knee 

Thy name, adoring, and then preach Thee man ! 

So fares Thy church. But how Thy church may fare 

The world takes little thought. Who will may preach, 

And what they will. All pastors are alike 890 

To wandering sheep, resolved to follow none. 

Two gods divide them all, Pleasure and Gain : 

For these they live, they sacrifice to these, 

And in their service wage perpetual war 

With conscience and with Thee. Lust in their hearts, 895 

And mischief in their hands, they roam the earth 

To prey upon each other : stubborn, fierce, 

High-minded, foaming out their own disgrace. 

Thy prophets speak of such ; and, noting down 

The features of the last degenerate times, 9 00 

Exhibit every lineament of these. 

Come then, and added to Thy many crowns, 

Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest, 



THE TASK. 155 

Due to Thy last and most effectual work, 

Thy word fulfilled, the conquest of a world. 9°5 

He is the happy man, whose life even now 
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come ; 
Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, 
Is pleased with it, and, were he free to choose, 
Would make his fate his choice ; whom peace, the fruit 910 
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, 
Prepare for happiness ; bespeak him one 
Content indeed to sojourn while he must 
Below the skies, but having there his home. 
The world o'erlooks him in her busy search 915 

Of objects more illustrious in her view ; 
And occupied as earnestly as she, 
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world. 
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not ; 
He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. 920 

IJe cannot skim the ground like summer birds 
Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems 
Her honours, her emoluments, her joys. 
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, 

Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth 9 2 5 
She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, 
And shows him glories yet to be revealed. 
Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed, 
And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams 
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird 93° 

That nutters least is longest on the wing. 
Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has raised, 
Or what achievements of immortal fame 
He purposes, and he shall answer — None. 
His warfare is within. There unfatigued 935 

His fervent spirit labours. There he fights, 
And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, 



156 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

And never- withering wreaths, compared with which 

The laurels that a Caesar reaps are weeds. 

Perhaps the self-approving haughty world, 94° 

That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks 

Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see, 

Deems him a cipher in the works of God, 

Receives advantage from his noiseless hours, 

Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes 945 

Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring 

And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes, 

When, Isaac-like, the solitary saint 

Walks forth to meditate at eventide, 

And think on her, who thinks not for herself. 95° 

Forgive him then, thou bustler in concerns 

Of little worth, and idler in the best, 

If, author of no mischief and some good, 

He seeks his proper happiness by means 

That may advance, but cannot hinder, thine. 955 

Nor though he tread the secret path of life, 

Engage no notice, and enjoy much ease, 

Account him an encumbrance on the state, 

Receiving benefits, and rendering none. 

His sphere though humble, if that humble sphere 960 

Shine with his fair example, and though small 

His influence, if that influence all be spent 

In soothing sorrow and in quenching strife, 

In aiding helpless indigence, in works 

From which at least a grateful few derive 9 6 5 

Some taste of comfort in a world of woe, 

Then let the supercilious great confess 

He serves his country, recompenses well 

The state beneath the shadow of whose vine 

He sits secure, and in the scale of life 97° 

Holds no ignoble, though a slighted, place. 



THE TASK. 157 

The man whose virtues are more felt than seen 

Must drop indeed the hope of public praise ; 

But he may boast what few that win it can, 

That if his country stand not by his skill, 975 

At least his follies have not wrought her fall. 

Polite refinement offers him in vain 

Her golden tube, through which a sensual world 

Draws gross impurity, and likes it well, 

The neat conveyance hiding all the offence. 980 

Not that he peevishly rejects a mode 

Because that world adopts it. If it bear 

The stamp and clear impression of good sense, 

And be not costly more than of true worth, 

He puts it on, and for decorum sake 9 8 5 

Can wear it even as gracefully as she. 

She judges of refinement by the eye, 

He by the test of conscience, and a heart 

Not soon deceived ; aware that what is base 

No polish can make sterling, and that vice, 99° 

Though well perfumed and elegantly dressed, 

Like an unburied carcase tricked with flowers, 

Is but a garnished nuisance, fitter far 

For cleanly riddance than for fair attire. 

So life glides smoothly and by stealth away, 995 

More golden than that age of fabled gold 

Renowned in ancient song ; not vexed with care 

Or stained with guilt, beneficent, approved 

Of God and man, and peaceful in its end. 

So glide my life away ! and so at last, 1000 

My share of duties decently fulfilled, 

May some disease, not tardy to perform 

Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke 

Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat, 

Beneath the turf that I have often trod. 1005 



158 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

It shall not grieve me, then, that once, when called 

To dress a Sofa with the flowers of verse, 

I played awhile, obedient to the fair, 

With that light task ; but soon, to please her more, 

Whom flowers alone I knew would little please, ioio 

Let fall the unfinished wreath, and roved for fruit ; 

Roved far, and gathered much : some harsh, 'tis true, 

Picked from the thorns and briars of reproof, 

But wholesome, well digested ; grateful some 

To palates that can taste immortal truth, 1015 

Insipid else, and sure to be despised. 

But all is in His hand whose praise I seek. 

In vain the poet sings, and the world hears, 

If He regard not, though divine the theme. 

'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime 1020 

And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre, 

To charm His ear, whose eye is on the heart; 

Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, 

Whose approbation prosper — even mine. 



RETIREMENT. 

. . . . studiis florens ignobilis oti. 

Virg. Georg. lib. iv. 

Hackneyed in business, wearied at that oar 

Which thousands, once fast chained to, quit no more, 

But which, when life at ebb runs weak and low, 

All wish, or seem to wish, they could forego ; 

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade, 5 

Pants for the refuge of some rural shade, 

Where, all his long anxieties forgot 

Amid the charms of a sequestered spot, 

Or recollected only to gild o'er 

And add a smile to what was sweet before, 10 

He may possess the joys he thinks he sees, 

Lay his old age upon the lap of Ease, 

Improve the remnant of his wasted span, 

And, having lived a trifler, die a man. 

Thus Conscience pleads her cause within the breast, 15 

Though long rebelled against, not yet suppressed, 

And calls a creature formed for God alone, 

For heaven's high purposes, and not his own, 

Calls him away from selfish ends and aims, 

From what debilitates and what inflames, 20 

From cities humming with a restless crowd, 

Sordid as active, ignorant as loud, 

Whose highest praise is that they live in vain, 

The dupes of pleasure, or the slaves of gain, 

Where works of man are clustered close around, 25 

And works of God are hardly to be found, 

To regions where, in spite of sin and woe, 



160 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Traces of Eden are still seen below, 

Where mountain, river, forest, field and grove, 

Remind him of his Maker's power and love. 3° 

'T is well if, looked for at so late a day, 

In the last scene of such a senseless play, 

True wisdom will attend his feeble call, 

And grace his action ere the curtain fall. 

Souls that have long despised their heavenly birth, 35 

Their wishes all impregnated with Earth, 

For threescore years employed with ceaseless care 

In catching smoke and feeding upon air, 

Conversant only with the ways of men, 

Rarely redeem the short remaining ten. 40 

Inveterate habits choke the unfruitful heart, 

Their fibres penetrate its tenderest part, 

And, draining its nutritious powers to feed 

Their noxious growth, starve every better seed. 

Happy, if full of days — but happier far, 45 

If, ere we yet discern life's evening star, 
Sick of the service of a world that feeds 
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds, 
We can escape from Custom's idiot sway, 
To serve the Sovereign we were born to obey. 5° 

Then sweet to muse upon his skill displayed 
(Infinite skill) in all that He has made ! 
To trace in Nature's most minute design 
The signature and stamp of power divine, 
Contrivance intricate, expressed with ease, 55 

Where unassisted sight no beauty sees, 
The shapely limb and lubricated joint, 
Within the small dimensions of a point, 
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun, 

His mighty work who speaks and it is done, 60 

The Invisible in things scarce seen revealed, 



RETIREMENT. 161 

To whom an atom is an ample field ; 

To wonder at a thousand insect forms, 

These hatched, and those resuscitated worms, 

New life ordained and brighter scenes to share, 65 

Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air, 

Whose shape would make them, had they bulk and size, 

More hideous foes than fancy can devise ; 

With helmet heads, and dragon scales adorned, 

The mighty myriads, now securely scorned, 70 

Would mock the majesty of man's high birth, 

Despise his bulwarks, and unpeople earth : 

Then with a glance of fancy to survey, 

Far as the faculty can stretch away, 

Ten thousand rivers poured at his command 75 

From urns, that never fail, through every land ; 

These like a deluge with impetuous force, 

Those winding modestly a silent course ; 

The cloud-surmounting Alps, the fruitful vales ; 

Seas, on which every nation spreads her sails ; 80 

The sun, a world whence other worlds drink light, 

The crescent moon, the diadem of night ; 

Stars countless, each in his appointed place, 

Fast anchored in the deep abyss of space — 

At such a sight to catch the poet's flame, 85 

And with a rapture like his own exclaim, 

"These are thy glorious works, thou Source of good, 

How dimly seen, how faintly understood ! 

Thine, and upheld by thy paternal care, 

This universal frame, thus wondrous fair ; 9° 

Thy power divine, and bounty beyond thought, 

Adored and praised in all that thou hast wrought. 

Absorbed in that immensity I see, 

I shrink abased, and yet aspire to thee ; 

Instruct me, guide me to that heavenly day 95 



162 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Thy words, more clearly than thy works, display, 
That, while thy truths my grosser thoughts refine, 
I may resemble thee, and call thee mine." 

O blest proficiency ! surpassing all 
That men erroneously their glory call, ioo 

The recompense that arts or arms can yield, 
The bar, the senate, or the tented field. 
Compared with this sublimest life below, 
Ye kings and rulers, what have courts to show ? 
Thus studied, used and consecrated thus, 105 

On earth what is, seems formed indeed for us : 
Not as the plaything of a froward child, 
Fretful unless diverted and beguiled, 
Much less to feed and fan the fatal fires 
Of pride, ambition, or impure desires, no 

But as a scale, by which the soul ascends 
From mighty means to more important ends, 
Securely, though by steps but rarely trod, 
Mounts from inferior beings up to God, 

And sees, by no fallacious light or dim, 115 

Earth made for man, and man himself for Him. 

Not that I mean to approve, or would enforce, 
A superstitious and monastic course : 
Truth is not local, God alike pervades 

And fills the world of traffic and the shades, 120 

And may be feared amid the busiest scenes, 
Or scorned where business never intervenes. 
But 't is not easy with a mind like ours, 
Conscious of weakness in its noblest powers, 
And in a world where, other ills apart, 125 

The roving eye misleads the careless heart, 
To limit Thought, by nature prone to stray 
Wherever freakish Fancy points the way ; 
To bid the pleadings of Self-love be still, 



RETIREMENT. 163 

Resign our own, and seek our Maker's will ; 13° 

To spread the page of Scripture, and compare 

Our conduct with the laws engraven there ; 

To measure all that passes in the breast, 

Faithfully, fairly, by that sacred test ; 

To dive into the secret deeps within, 135 

To spare no passion and no favourite sin, 

And search the themes, important above all, 

Ourselves, and our recovery from our fall. 

But leisure, silence, and a mind released 

From anxious thoughts how wealth may be increased, 140 

How to secure, in some propitious hour, 

The point of interest or the post of power, 

A soul serene, and equally retired 

From objects too much dreaded or desired, 

Safe from the clamours of perverse dispute, 145 

At least are friendly to the great pursuit. 

Opening the map of God's extensive plan, 
We find a little isle, this life of man ; 
Eternity's unknown expanse appears 

Circling around and limiting his years. 150 

The busy race examine and explore 
Each creek and cavern of the dangerous shore, 
With care collect what in their eyes excels, 
Some shining pebbles, and some weeds and shells ; 
Thus laden, dream that they are rich and great, 155 

And happiest he that groans beneath his weight : 
The waves o'ertake them in their serious play, 
And every hour sweeps multitudes away ; 
They shriek and sink, survivors start and weep, 
Pursue their sport, and follow to the deep. 160 

A few forsake the throng ; with lifted eyes 
Ask wealth of Heaven, and gain a real prize, 
Truth, wisdom, grace, and peace like that above, 



164 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Sealed with His signet whom they serve and love ; 
Scorned by the rest, with patient hope they wait 165 

A kind release from their imperfect state, 
And unregretted are soon snatched away 
From scenes of sorrow into glorious day. 

Nor these alone prefer a life recluse, 
Who seek retirement for its proper use ; 17° 

The love of change that lives in every breast, 
Genius, and temper, and desire of rest, 
Discordant motives in one centre meet, 
And each inclines its votary to retreat. 
Some minds by nature are averse to noise, 175 

And hate the tumult half the world enjoys, 
The lure of avarice, or the pompous prize, 
That courts display before ambitious eyes ; 
The fruits that hang on pleasure's flowery stem, 
Whate'er enchants them, are no snares to them. 180 

To them the deep recess of dusky groves, 
Or forest where the deer securely roves, 
The fall of waters and the song of birds, 
And hills that echo to the distant herds, 
Are luxuries excelling all the glare l8 5 

The world can boast, and her chief favourites share. 
With eager step, and carelessly arrayed, 
For such a cause the poet seeks the shade : 
From all he sees he catches new delight, 
Pleased fancy claps her pinions at the sight ; !9° 

The rising or the setting orb of day, 
The clouds that flit, or slowly float away, 
Nature in all the various shapes she wears, 
Frowning in storms, or breathing gentle airs, 
The snowy robe her wintry state assumes, J 95 

Her summer heats, her fruits, and her perfumes, 
All, all alike, transport the glowing bard, 



RETIREMENT. 165 

Success in rhyme his glory and reward. 

Nature ! whose Elysian scenes disclose 

His bright perfections, at whose word they rose, 200 

Next to that Power, who formed thee and sustains, 

Be thou the great inspirer of my strains. 

Still, as I touch the lyre, do thou expand 

Thy genuine charms, and guide an artless hand, 

That I may catch a fire but rarely known, 205 

Give useful light, though I should miss renown, 

And, poring on thy page, whose every line 

Bears proof of an intelligence divine, 

May feel a heart enriched by what it pays, 

That builds its glory on its Maker's praise. 210 

Woe to the man whose wit disclaims its use, 

Glittering in vain, or only to seduce, 

Who studies nature with a wanton eye, 

Admires the work, but slips the lesson by ; 

His hours of leisure and recess employs 215 

In drawing pictures of forbidden joys, 

Retires to blazon his own worthless name, 

Or shoot the careless with a surer aim. 

The lover too shuns business and alarms, 
Tender idolater of absent charms. 220 

Saints offer nothing in their warmest prayers 
That he devotes not with a zeal like theirs ; 
'T is consecration of his heart, soul, time, 
And every thought that wanders is a crime. 
In sighs he worships his supremely fair, 225 

And weeps a sad libation in despair, 
Adores a creature, and, devout in vain, 
Wins in return an answer of disdain. 
As woodbine weds the plants within her reach, 
Rough elm, or smooth-grained ash, or glossy beech, 230 

In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays 



166 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays, 

But does a mischief while she lends a grace, 

Straitening its growth by such a strict embrace ; 

So Love, that clings around the noblest minds, 235 

Forbids the advancement of the soul he binds ; 

The suitor's air indeed he soon improves, 

And forms it to the taste of her he loves, 

Teaches his eyes a language, and no less 

Refines his speech, and fashions his address ; 240 

But farewell promises of happier fruits, 

Manly designs, and learning's grave pursuits ; 

Girt with a chain he cannot wish to break, 

His only bliss is sorrow for her sake ; 

Who will may pant for glory and excel, 245 

Her smile his aim, all higher aims farewell ! 

Thyrsis, Alexis, or whatever name 

May least offend against so pure a flame, 

Though sage advice of friends the most sincere 

Sound harshly in so delicate an ear, 250 

And lovers, of all creatures, tame or wild, 

Can least brook management, however mild, 

Yet let a poet (poetry disarms 

The fiercest animals with magic charms) 

Risk an intrusion on thy pensive mood, 255 

And woo and win thee to thy proper good. 

Pastoral images and still retreats, 

Umbrageous walks and solitary seats, 

Sweet birds in concert with harmonious streams, 

Soft airs, nocturnal vigils, and day dreams, 260 

Are all enchantments in a case like thine, 

Conspire against thy peace with one design, 

Soothe thee to make thee but a surer prey, 

And feed the fire that wastes thy powers away. 

Up — God has formed thee with a wiser view, 265 



RETIREMENT. 167 

Not to be led in chains, but to subdue ; 

Calls thee to cope with enemies, and first 

Points out a conflict with thyself, the worst. 

Woman indeed, a gift he would bestow 

When he designed a paradise below, 270 

The richest earthly boon his hands afford, 

Deserves to be beloved, but not adored. 

Post away swiftly to more active scenes, 

Collect the scattered truths that study gleans, 

Mix with the world, but with its wiser part, 275 

No longer give an image all thine heart ; 

Its empire is not hers, nor is it thine, 

'Tis God's just claim, prerogative divine. 

Virtuous and faithful Heberden, whose skill 
Attempts no task it cannot well fulfil, 280 

Gives melancholy up to nature's care, 
And sends the patient into purer air. 
Look where he comes — in this embowered alcove, 
Stand close concealed, and see a statue move : 
Lips busy, and eyes fixed, foot falling slow, 285 

Arms hanging idly down, hands clasped below, 
Interpret to the marking eye distress, 
Such as its symptoms can alone express. 
That tongue is silent now ; that silent tongue 
Could argue once, could jest or join the song, 290 

Could give advice, could censure or commend, 
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend. 
Renounced alike its office and its sport, 
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short ; 
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway, 295 

And like a summer brook are past away. 
This is a sight for Pity to peruse, 
Till she resemble faintly what she views, 
Till Sympathy contract a kindred pain, 



168 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Pierced with the woes that she laments in vain. 300 

This, of all maladies that man infest, 

Claims most compassion, and receives the least : 

Job felt it, when he groaned beneath the rod 

And the barbed arrows of a frowning God ; 

And such emollients as his friends could spare, 305 

Friends such as his for modern Jobs prepare. 

Blest, rather curst, with hearts that never feel, 

Kept snug in caskets of close hammered steel, 

With mouths made only to grin wide and eat, 

And minds that deem derided pain a treat ; 310 

With limbs of British oak, and nerves of wire, 

And wit, that puppet-prompters might inspire, 

Their sovereign nostrum is a clumsy joke 

On pangs enforced with God's severest stroke. 

But with a soul, that ever felt the sting 315 

Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing : 

Not to molest, or irritate, or raise 

A laugh at its expense, is slender praise ; 

He, that has not usurped the name of man, 

Does all, and deems too little all, he can 320 

To assuage the throbbings of the festered part, 

And stanch the bleedings of a broken heart. 

'Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose, 

Forgery of fancy, and a dream of woes ; 

Man is a harp whose chords elude the sight, 3 2 5 

Each yielding harmony, disposed aright ; 

The screws reversed (a task which if He please 

God in a moment executes with ease) 

Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose, 

Lost, till He tune them, all their power and use. 33° 

Then neither heathy wilds, nor scenes as fair 

As ever recompensed the peasant's care, 

Nor soft declivities with tufted hills, 



RETIREMENT. 169 

Nor view of waters turning busy mills, 

Parks in which Art preceptress Nature weds, 335 

Nor gardens interspersed with flowery beds, 

Nor gales, that catch the scent of blooming groves, 

And waft it to the mourner as he roves, 

Can call up life into his faded eye 

That passes all he sees unheeded by : 340 

No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels ; 

No cure for such, till God, who makes them, heals. 

And thou, sad sufferer under nameless ill, 

That yields not to the touch of human skill, 

Improve the kind occasion, understand 345 

A Father's frown, and kiss his chastening hand. 

To thee the day-spring, and the blaze of noon, 

The purple evening and resplendent moon, 

The stars, that, sprinkled o'er the vault of night, 

Seem drops descending in a shower of light, 35° 

Shine not, or undesired and hated shine, 

Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine : 

Yet seek Him, in his favour life is found ; 

All bliss beside, a shadow or a sound : 

Then Heaven, eclipsed so long, and this dull Earth, 355 

Shall seem to start into a second birth ; 

Nature, assuming a more lovely face, 

Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace, 

Shall be despised and overlooked no more, 

Shall fill thee with delights unfelt before, 3 6 ° 

Impart to things inanimate a voice, 

And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice ; 

The sound shall run along the winding vales, 

And thou enjoy an Eden ere it fails. 

" Ye groves," the statesman at his desk exclaims, 3 6 5 

Sick of a thousand disappointed aims, 
M My patrimonial treasure and my pride, 



170 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Beneath your shades your grey possessor hide, 

Receive me languishing for that repose 

The servant of the public never knows. 37° 

Ye saw me once (ah those regretted days, 

When boyish innocence was all my praise !) 

Hour after hour delightfully allot 

To studies then familiar, since forgot, 

And cultivate a taste for ancient song, 375 

Catching its ardour as I mused along ; 

Nor seldom, as propitious heaven might send, 

What once I valued and could boast, a friend, 

Were witnesses how cordially I pressed 

His undissembling virtue to my breast ; 3^° 

Receive me now, not uncorrupt as then, 

Nor guiltless of corrupting other men, 

But versed in arts, that, while they seem to stay 

A fallen empire, hasten its decay. 

To the fair haven of my native home, 3 8 5 

The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come ; 

For once I can approve the patriot's voice, 

And make the course he recommends my choice : 

We meet at last in one sincere desire, 

His wish and mine both prompt me to retire." 39° 

'Tis done — he steps into the welcome chaise, 

Lolls at his ease behind four handsome bays, 

That whirl away from business and debate 

The disencumbered Atlas of the state. 

Ask not the boy, who, when the breeze of morn 395 

First shakes the glittering drops from every thorn, 

Unfolds his flock, then under bank or bush 

Sits linking cherry-stones, or platting rush, 

How fair is freedom ? — he was always free : 

To carve his rustic name upon a tree, 4°° 

To snare the mole, or with ill-fashioned hook 



RE TIREMENT. 1 7 1 

To draw the incautious minnow from the brook, 

Are life's prime pleasures in his simple view, 

His flock the chief concern he ever knew ; 

She shines but little in his heedless eyes, 405 

The good we never miss we rarely prize : 

But ask the noble drudge in state affairs, 

Escaped from office and its constant cares, 

What charms he sees in freedom's smile expressed, 

In freedom lost so long, now repossessed ; 4 T o 

The tongue, whose strains were cogent as commands, 

Revered at home, and felt in foreign lands, 

Shall own itself a stammerer in that cause, 

Or plead its silence as its best applause. 

He knows indeed that, whether dressed or rude, 4 T 5 

Wild without art, or artfully subdued, 

Nature in every form inspires delight, 

But never marked her with so just a sight. 

Her hedge-row shrubs, a variegated store, 

With woodbine and wild roses mantled o'er, 4 2 o 

Green balks and furrowed lands, the stream that spreads 

Its cooling vapour o'er the dewy meads, 

Downs, that almost escape the inquiring eye, 

That melt and fade into the distant sky, 

Beauties he lately slighted as he passed, 4 2 5 

Seem all created since he travelled last. 

Master of all the enjoyments he designed, 

No rough annoyance rankling in his mind, 

What early philosophic hours he keeps, 

How regular his meals, how sound he sleeps ! 43° 

Not sounder he that on the mainmast head, 

While morning kindles with a windy red, 

Begins a long look-out for distant land, 

Nor quits till evening-watch his giddy stand, 

Then swift descending with a seaman's haste, 435 



172 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Slips to his hammock, and forgets the blast. 
He chooses company, but not the squire's, 
Whose wit is rudeness, whose good breeding tires ; 
Nor yet the parson's, who would gladly come, 
Obsequious when abroad, though proud at home ; 44° 

Nor can he much affect the neighbouring peer, 
Whose toe of emulation treads too near ; 
But wisely seeks a more convenient friend, 
With whom, dismissing forms, he may unbend : 
A man whom marks of condescending grace 445 

Teach, while they flatter him, his proper place : 
Who comes when called, and at a word withdraws, 
Speaks with reserve, and listens with applause ; 
Some plain mechanic, who, without pretence 
To birth or wit, nor gives nor takes offence, 450 

On whom he rests well pleased his weary powers, 
And talks and laughs away his vacant hours. 
The tide of life, swift always in its course, 
May run in cities with a brisker force, 

But nowhere with a current so serene, 455 

Or half so clear, as in the rural scene. 
Yet how fallacious is all earthly bliss, 
What obvious truths the wisest heads may miss ; 
Some pleasures live a month, and some a year, 
But short the date of all we gather here ; 460 

No happiness is felt, except the true, 
That does not charm the more for being new. 
This observation, as it chanced, not made, 
Or, if the thought occurred, not duly weighed, 
He sighs — for, after all, by slow degrees 465 

The spot he loved has lost the power to please ; 
To cross his ambling pony day by day 
Seems at the best but dreaming life away ; 
The prospect, such as might enchant despair, 



RE TIRE ME NT. 1 73 

He views it not, or sees no beauty there ; 47° 

With aching heart, and discontented looks, 

Returns at noon to billiards or to books, 

But feels, while grasping at his faded joys, 

A secret thirst of his renounced employs. 

He chides the tardiness of every post, 475 

Pants to be told of battles won or lost, 

Blames his own indolence, observes, though late, 

'T is criminal to leave a sinking state, 

Flies to the levee, and received with grace, 

Kneels, kisses hands, and shines again in place. 480 

Suburban villas, highway-side retreats, 
That dread the encroachment of our growing streets, 
Tight boxes, neatly sashed, and in a blaze 
With all a July sun's collected rays, 

Delight the citizen, who, gasping there, 485 

Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air. 
O sweet retirement, who would balk the thought, 
That could afford retirement, or could not ? 
'T is such an easy walk, so smooth and straight, 
The second milestone fronts the garden gate ; 49° 

A step if fair, and, if a shower approach, 
You find safe shelter in the next stage-coach. 
There prisoned in a parlour snug and small, 
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall, 
The man of business and his friends compressed 495 

Forget their labours, and yet find no rest ; 
But still 't is rural — trees are to be seen 
From every window, and the fields are green ; 
Ducks paddle in the pond before the door, 
And what could a remoter scene show more ? 5 00 

A sense of elegance we rarely find 
The portion of a mean or vulgar mind, 
And ignorance of better things makes man, 



174 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Who cannot much, rejoice in what he can ; 

And he, that deems his leisure well bestowed 505 

In contemplation of a turnpike road, 

Is occupied as well, employs his hours 

As wisely, and as much improves his powers, 

As he that slumbers in pavilions graced 

With all the charms of an accomplished taste. 510 

Yet hence, alas ! insolvencies ; and hence 

The unpitied victim of ill-judged expense, 

From all his wearisome engagements freed, 

Shakes hands with business, and retires indeed. 

Your prudent grandmammas, ye modern belles, 5 T 5 

Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge Wells, 
When health required it, would consent to roam, 
Else more attached to pleasures found at home. 
But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife, 

Ingenious to diversify dull life, 5 20 

In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys, 
Fly to the coast for daily, nightly joys, 
And all, impatient of dry land, agree 
With one consent to rush into the sea. — 
Ocean exhibits, fathomless and broad, 5 2 5 

Much of the power and majesty of God. 
He swathes about the swelling of the deep, 
That shines, and rests, as infants smile and sleep ; 
Vast as it is, it answers as it flows 

The breathings of the lightest air that blows ; . 53° 

Curling and whitening over all the waste, 
The rising waves obey the increasing blast, 
Abrupt and horrid as the tempest roars, 
Thunder and flash upon the steadfast shores, 
Till He that rides the whirlwind checks the rein, 535 

Then all the world of waters sleeps again. — 
Nereids or Dryads, as the fashion leads, 



RE TIRE ME NT. 1 75 

Now in the floods, now panting in the meads, 

Votaries of Pleasure still, where'er she dwells, 

Near barren rocks, in palaces, or cells, 54° 

O grant a poet leave to recommend 

(A poet fond of Nature, and your friend) 

Her slighted works to your admiring view, 

Her works must needs excel who fashioned you. 

Would ye, when rambling in your morning ride, 545 

With some unmeaning, coxcomb at your side, 

Condemn the prattler for his idle pains, 

To waste unheard the music of his strains, 

And, deaf to all the impertinence of tongue, 

That, while it courts, affronts and does you wrong, — 550 

Mark well the finished plan without a fault, 

The seas globose and huge, the o'erarching vault, 

Earth's millions daily fed, a world employed 

In gathering plenty yet to be enjoyed, 

Till gratitude grew vocal in the praise 555 

Of God, beneficent in all His ways ; 

Graced with such wisdom, how would beauty shine ! 

Ye want but that to seem indeed divine. 

Anticipated rents and bills unpaid 
Force many a shining youth into the shade, 5 6 ° 

Not to redeem his time, but his estate, 
And play the fool, but at a cheaper rate : 
There, hid in loathed obscurity, removed 
From pleasures left, but never more beloved, 
He just endures, and with a sickly spleen 5 6 5 

Sighs o'er the beauties of the charming scene. 
Nature indeed looks prettily in rhyme ; 
Streams tinkle sweetly in poetic chime : 
The warblings of the blackbird, clear and strong, 
Are musical enough in Thomson's song; 57° 

And Cobham's groves, and Windsor's green retreats, 



176 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

When Pope describes them, have a thousand sweets ; 
He likes the country, but in truth must own, 
Most likes it when he studies it in town. 

Poor Jack — no matter who — for when I blame 575 

I pity, and must therefore sink the name — 
Lived in his saddle, loved the chase, the course, 
And always, ere he mounted, kissed his horse. 
The estate his sires had owned in ancient years 
Was quickly distanced, matched against a peer's. 5 8 ° 

Jack vanished, was regretted and forgot ; 
'T is wild good-nature's never-failing lot. 
At length, when all had long supposed him dead, 
By cold submersion, razor, rope, or lead, 
My lord, alighting at his usual place, 5^5 

The Crown, took notice of an ostler's face. 
Jack knew his friend, but hoped in that disguise 
He might escape the most observing eyes, 
And whistling, as if unconcerned and gay, 
Curried his nag and looked another way. 59° 

Convinced at last, upon a nearer view, 
'T was he, the same, the very Jack he knew, 
O'erwhelmed at once with wonder, grief, and joy, 
He pressed him much to quit his base employ ; 
His countenance, his purse, his heart, his hand, 595 

Influence and power, were all at his command : 
Peers are not always generous as well-bred, 
But Granby was, meant truly what he said. 
Jack bowed, and was obliged — confessed 'twas strange, 
That so retired he should not wish a change, 6oo 

But knew no medium between guzzling beer 
And his old stint — three thousand pounds a year. 

Thus some retire to nourish hopeless woe ; 
Some seeking happiness not found below ; 
Some to comply with humour, and a mind 605 



RETIREMENT. 



Ill 



To social scenes by nature disinclined ; 

Some swayed by fashion, some by deep disgust ; 

Some self-impoverished, and because they must ; 

But few, that court Retirement, are aware 

Of half the toils they must encounter there. 610 

Lucrative offices are seldom lost 
For want of powers proportioned to the post : 
Give even a dunce the employment he desires, 
And he soon finds the talents it requires ; 
A business with an income at its heels 615 

Furnishes always oil for its own wheels. 
But in his arduous enterprise to close 
His active years with indolent repose, 
He finds the labours of that state exceed 
His utmost faculties, severe indeed. 620 

'T is easy to resign a toilsome place, 
But not to manage leisure with a grace ; 
Absence of occupation is not rest, 
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. 
The veteran steed, excused his task at length, 625 

In kind compassion of his failing strength, 
And turned into the park or mead to graze, 
Exempt from future service all his days, 
There feels a pleasure perfect in its kind, 
Ranges at liberty, and snuffs the wind. 630 

But when his lord would quit the busy road, 
To taste a joy like that he has bestowed, 
He proves, less happy than his favoured brute, 
A life of ease a difficult pursuit. 

Thought, to the man that never thinks, may seem 635 

As natural as when asleep to dream ; 
But reveries (for human minds will act) 
Specious in show, impossible in fact, 
Those flimsy webs, that break as soon as wrought, 



178 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Attain not to the dignity of thought : 640 

Nor yet the swarms that occupy the brain, 

Where dreams of dress, intrigue, and pleasure reign ; 

Nor such as useless conversation breeds, 

Or lust engenders, and indulgence feeds. 

Whence and what are we ? to what end ordained ? 645 

What means the drama by the world sustained ? 

Business or vain amusement, care, or mirth, 

Divide the frail inhabitants of earth. 

Is duty a mere sport, or an employ ? 

Life an intrusted talent, or a toy ? 650 

Is there, as reason, conscience, scripture, say, 

Cause to provide for a great future day, 

When, earth's assigned duration at an end, 

Man shall be summoned, and the dead attend ? 

The trumpet — will it sound ? the curtain rise ? 655 

And show the august tribunal of the skies, 

Where no prevarication shall avail, 

Where eloquence and artifice shall fail, 

The pride of arrogant distinctions fall, 

And conscience and our conduct judge us all ? 660 

Pardon me, ye that give the midnight oil 

To learned cares or philosophic toil, 

Though I revere your honourable names, 

Your useful labours and important aims, 

And hold the world indebted to your aid, 665 

Enriched with the discoveries ye have made ; 

Yet let me stand excused, if I esteem 

A mind employed on so sublime a theme, 

Pushing her bold inquiry to the date 

And outline of the present transient state, 670 

And, after poising her adventurous wings, 

Settling at last upon eternal things, 

Far more intelligent, and better taught 



RE TIRE ME NT. 1 79 

The strenuous use of profitable thought, 

Than ye, when happiest, and enlightened most, 675 

And highest in renown, can justly boast. 

A mind unnerved, or indisposed to bear 
The weight of subjects worthiest of her care, 
Whatever hopes a change of scene inspires, 
Must change her nature, or in vain retires. 680 

An idler is a watch that wants both hands, 
As useless if it goes as when it stands. 
Books therefore, not the scandal of the shelves, 
In which lewd sensualists print out themselves ; 
Nor those in which the stage gives vice a blow, 685 

With what success let modern manners show ; 
Nor his who, for the bane of thousands born, 
Built God a church, and laughed his word to scorn, 
Skilful alike to seem devout and just, 

And stab religion with a sly side-thrust ; 690 

Nor those of learned philologists, who chase 
A panting syllable through time and space, 
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, 
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark ; 
But such as learning without false pretence, 695 

The friend of truth, the associate of sound sense, 
And such as, in the zeal of good design, 
Strong judgment labouring in the scripture mine, 
All such as manly and great souls produce, 
Worthy to live, and of eternal use ; 7°° 

Behold in these what leisure hours demand, 
Amusement and true knowledge hand in hand. 
Luxury gives the mind a childish cast, 
And, while she polishes, perverts the taste ; 
Habits of close attention, thinking heads, 7°5 

Become more rare as dissipation spreads, 
Till authors Jaear at length one general cry, 



180 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Tickle and entertain us, or we die. 

The loud demand, from year to year the same, 

Beggars Invention, and makes Fancy lame ; 7 l ° 

Till farce itself, most mournfully jejune, 

Calls for the kind assistance of a tune, 

And novels (witness every month's Review) 

Belie their name, and offer nothing new. 

The mind relaxing into needful sport, 715 

Should turn to writers of an abler sort, 

Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, 

Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. 

Friends, (for I cannot stint, as some have done, 
Too rigid in my view, that name to one ; 7 2 ° 

Though one, I grant it, in the generous breast, 
Will stand advanced a step above the rest : 
Flowers by that name promiscuously we call, 
But one, the rose, the regent of them all) — 
Friends, not adopted with a schoolboy's haste, 7 2 5 

But chosen with a nice discerning taste, 
Well born, well disciplined, who, placed apart 
From vulgar minds, have honour much at heart, 
And, though the world may think the ingredients odd, 
The love of virtue, and the fear of God ! 73° 

Such friends prevent what else would soon succeed, 
A temper rustic as the life we lead, 
And keep the polish of the manners clean, 
As theirs who bustle in the busiest scene ; 
For solitude, however some may rave, 735 

Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave, 
A sepulchre, in which the living lie, 
Where all good qualities grow sick and die. 
I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd — 
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude ! 74° 

But grant me still a friend in my retreat, 



RETIREMENT. 181 

Whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet. 

Yet neither these delights, nor aught beside 

That appetite can ask, or wealth provide, 

Can save us always from a tedious day, 745 

Or shine the dulness of still life away ; 

Divine communion, carefully enjoyed, 

Or sought with energy, must fill the void. 

O sacred art, to which alone life owes 

Its happiest seasons, and a peaceful close, 750 

Scorned in a world, indebted to that scorn 

For evils daily felt, and hardly borne, — 

Not knowing thee, we reap with bleeding hands 

Flowers of rank odour upon thorny lands, 

And, while experience cautions us in vain, 755 

Grasp seeming happiness, and find it pain. 

Despondence, self-deserted in her grief, 

Lost by abandoning her own relief ; 

Murmuring and ungrateful Discontent, 

That scorns afflictions mercifully meant, 760 

Those humours tart as wines upon the fret, 

Which idleness and weariness beget ; 

These and a thousand plagues that haunt the breast, 

Fond of the phantom of an earthly rest, 

Divine communion chases, as the day 765 

Drives to their dens the obedient beasts of prey. 

See Judah's promised king, bereft of all, 

Driven out an exile from the face of Saul. 

To distant caves the lonely wanderer flies, 

To seek that peace a tyrant's frown denies. . 77° 

Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice, 

Hear him, o'erwhelmed with sorrow, yet rejoice ; 

No womanish or wailing grief has part, 

No, not a moment, in his royal heart ; 

'Tis manly music, such as martyrs make, 775 



182 SELECTIONS FROM COIVPER. 

Suffering with gladness for a Saviour's sake : 

His soul exults, hope animates his lays, 

The sense of mercy kindles into praise, 

And wilds, familiar with the lion's roar, 

Ring with ecstatic sounds unheard before : 780 

'Tis love like his that can alone defeat 

The foes of man, or make a desert sweet. 

Religion does not censure or exclude 
Unnumbered pleasures harmlessly pursued ; 
To study culture, and with artful toil 7 8 5 

To meliorate and tame the stubborn soil ; 
To give dissimilar yet fruitful lands 
The grain, or herb, or plant, that each demands ; 
To cherish virtue in an humble state, 

And share the joys your bounty may create ; 79° 

To mark the matchless workings of the power 
That shuts within its seed the future flower, 
Bids these in elegance of form excel, 
In colour these, and those delight the smell, 
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies, 795 

To dance on Earth, and ,charm all human eyes ; 
To teach the canvas innocent deceit, 
Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheet - — 
These, these are arts, pursued without a crime, 
That leave no stain upon the wing of Time. 800 

Me poetry (or rather notes that aim 
Feebly and faintly at poetic fame) 
Employs, shut out from more important views, 
Fast by the banks of the slow-winding Ouse ; 
Content if thus sequestered I may raise 805 

A monitor's, though not a poet's praise, 
And while I teach an art too little known, 
To close life wisely, may not waste my own. 



THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. 183 

THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. 

A nightingale, that all day long 
Had cheered the village with his song, 
Nor yet at eve his note suspended, 
Nor yet when eventide was ended, 
Began to feel, as well he might, 5 

The keen demands of appetite ; 
When, looking eagerly around, 
He spied far off, upon the ground, 
A something shining in the dark, 
And knew the glow-worm by his spark ; 10 

So stooping down from hawthorn top, 
He thought to put him in his crop. 
The worm, aware of his intent, 
Harangued him thus, right eloquent — 
" Did you admire my lamp," quoth he, 1 5 

" As much as I your minstrelsy, 
You would abhor to do me wrong, 
As much as I to spoil your song ; 
For 'twas the self-same Power divine 
Taught you to sing and me to shine ; 2 ° 

That you with music, I with light, 
Might beautify, and cheer the night." 
The songster heard his short oration, 
And, warbling out his approbation, 
Released him, as my story tells, 2 S 

And found a supper somewhere else. 
Hence jarring sectaries may learn 
Their real interest to discern ; 
That brother should not war with brother, 
And worry and devour each other ; 3° 

But sing and shine by sweet consent, 
Till life's poor transient night is spent, 



184 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Respecting, in each other's case, 
The gifts of nature and of grace. 

Those Christians best deserve the name 35 

Who studiously make peace their aim ; 
Peace both the duty and the prize 
Of him that creeps and him that flies. 



REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE. 

NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS. 

Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose, 

The spectacles set them unhappily wrong ; 
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, 

To which the said spectacles ought to belong. 

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause 5 

With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning ; 

While Chief Baron Ear sat to balance the laws, 
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning. 

" In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear, 

And your lordship," he said, " will undoubtedly find, io 

That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, 
Which amounts to possession time out of mind." 

Then holding the spectacles up to the court — 

" Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle, 

As wide as the ridge of the Nose is ; in short, *5 

Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle. 

" Again, would your lordship a moment suppose 

('Tis a case that has happened, and may be again,) 

That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, 

Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles then ? 20 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 185 

M On the whole it appears, and my argument shows, 
With a reasoning the court will never condemn, 

That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, 
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them." 

Then shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how, 25 

He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes : 
But what were his arguments few people know, 

For the court did not think they were equally wise. 

So his lordship decreed with a grave solemn tone, 

Decisive and clear, without one if or but — 3° 

That, whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, 
By daylight or candlelight — Eyes should be shut ! 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN : 

SHOWING HOW HE WENT FARTHER THAN HE INTENDED AND CAME 
SAFE HOME AGAIN. 

John Gilpin was a citizen 

Of credit and renown, 
A train-band captain eke was he 

Of famous London town. 

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, 5 

•* Though wedded we have been 

These twice ten tedious years, yet we 
No holiday have seen. 

" To-morrow is our wedding-day, 

And we will then repair IO 

Unto the Bell at Edmonton, 

All in a chaise and pair. 



186 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

" My sister, and my sister's child, 

Myself, and children three, 
Will fill the chaise ; so you must ride 15 

On horseback after we." 

He soon replied, " I do admire 

Of womankind but one, 
And you are she, my dearest dear, 

Therefore it shall be done. 20 

"lama linen-draper bold, 

As all the world doth know, 
And my good friend the calender 

Will lend his horse to go." 

Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, " That 's well said ; 25 

And for that wine is dear, 
We will be furnished with our own, 

Which is both bright and clear." 

John Gilpin kissed his loving wife ; 

O'erjoyed was he to find, 3° 

That though on pleasure she was bent, 

She had a frugal mind. 

The morning came, the chaise was brought, 

But yet was not allowed 
To drive up to the door, lest all 35 

Should say that she was proud. 

So three doors off the chaise was stayed, 

Where they did all get in ; 
Six precious souls, and all agog 

To dash through thick and thin. 40 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 187 

Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, 

Were never folk so glad, 
The stones did rattle underneath, 

As if Cheapside were mad. 

John Gilpin at his horse's side 45 

Seized fast the flowing mane, 
And up he got, in haste to ride, 

But soon came down again ; 

For saddle-tree scarce reached had he, 

His journey to begin, 50 

When, turning round his head, he saw 

Three customers come in. 

So down he came ; for loss of time, 

Although it grieved him sore, 
Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, 55 

Would trouble him much more. 

'Twas long before the customers 

Were suited to their mind, 
When Betty screaming came down stairs, 

" The wine is left behind ! " 60 

" Good lack ! " quoth he — " yet bring it me, 

My leathern belt likewise, 
In which I bear my trusty sword, 

When I do exercise." 

Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul !) 65 

Had two stone bottles found, 
To hold the liquor that she loved, 

And keep it safe and sound. 



188 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Each bottle had a curling ear, 

Through which the belt he drew, 7° 

And hung a bottle on each side, 

To make his balance true. 

Then over all, that he might be 

Equipped from top to toe, 
His long red cloak, well- brushed and neat, 75 

He manfully did throw. 

Now see him mounted once again 

Upon his nimble steed, 
Full slowly pacing o'er the stones, 

With caution and good heed. 8o 

But finding soon a smoother road 

Beneath his well-shod feet, 
The snorting beast began to trot, 

Which galled him in his seat. 

So, " Fair and softly," John he cried, 85 

But John he cried in vain ; 
That trot became a gallop soon, 

In spite of curb and rein. 

So stooping down, as needs he must 

Who cannot sit upright, 9° 

He grasped the mane with both his hands, 

And eke with all his might. 

His horse, who never in that sort 

Had handled been before, 
What thing upon his back had got 95 

Did wonder more and more. 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 189 

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought ; 

Away went hat and wig ; 
He little dreamt, when he set out, 

Of running such a rig. ioo 

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly, 

Like streamer long and gay, 
Till, loop and button failing both, 

At last it flew away. 

Then might all people well discern 105 

The bottles he had slung ; 
A bottle swinging at each side, 

As hath been said or sung. 

The dogs did bark, the children screamed, 

Up flew the windows all; no 

And every soul cried out, " Well done ! " 
As loud as he could bawl. 

Away went Gilpin — -who but he ? 

His fame soon spread around ; 
" He carries weight ! " " He rides a race !" "5 

" 'Tis for a thousand pound !" 

And still, as fast as he drew near, 

'Twas wonderful to view, 
How in a trice the turnpike-men 

Their gates wide open threw. 120 

And now, as he went bowing down 

His reeking head full low, 
The bottles twain behind his back 

Were shattered at a blow. 



190 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Down ran the wine into the road, 125 

Most piteous to be seen, 
Which made his horse's flanks to smoke 

As they had basted been. 

But still he seemed to carry weight, 

With leathern girdle braced ; 13° 

For all might see the bottle-necks 

Still dangling at his waist. 

Thus all through merry Islington 

These gambols he did play, 
Until he came unto the Wash 135 

Of Edmonton so gay ; 

And there he threw the Wash about 

On both sides of the way, 
Just like unto a trundling mop, 

Or a wild goose at play. 140 

At Edmonton his loving wife - 

From the balcony spied 
Her tender husband, wondering much 

To see how he did ride. 

" Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! — Here 's the house ! " 145 

They all at once did cry ; 
" The dinner waits, and we are tired ;" — 

Said Gilpin — " So ami!" 

But yet his horse was not a whit 

Inclined to tarry there ! 15° 

For why ? — his owner had a house 

Full ten miles off, at Ware. 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 191 

So like an arrow swift he flew, 

Shot by an archer strong ; 
So did he fly — which brings me to 15s 

The middle of my song. 

Away went Gilpin, out of breath, 

And sore against his will, 
Till at his friend the calender's 

His horse at last stood still. 160 

The calender, amazed to see 

His neighbour in such trim, 
Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, 

And thus accosted him : 

" What news ? what news ? your tidings tell; 165 

Tell me you must and shall — 
Say why bareheaded you are come, 

" Or why you come at all ? " 

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, 

And loved a timely joke ; 170 

And thus unto the calender 

In merry guise he spoke : 

" I came because your horse would come, 

And, if I well forebode, 
My hat and wig will soon be here, — 175 

They are upon the road." 

The calender, right glad to find 

His friend in merry pin, 
Returned him not a single word, 

But to the house went in ; 180 



192 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Whence straight he came with hat and wig ; 

A wig that flowed behind, 
A hat not much the worse for wear, 

Each comely in its kind. 

He held them up, and in his turn 185 

Thus showed his ready wit, 
" My head is twice as big as yours, 

They therefore needs must fit. 

" But let me scrape the dirt away 

That hangs upon your face ; 19° 

And stop and eat, for well you may 

Be in a hungry case." 

Said John, " It is my wedding-day, 

And all the world would stare, 
If wife should dine at Edmonton, 195 

And I should dine at Ware." 

So turning to his horse, he said, 

" I am in haste to dine ; 
'T was for your pleasure you came here, 

You shall go back for mine." 200 

Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast ! 

For which he paid full dear ; 
For, while he spake, a braying ass 

Did sing most loud and clear ; 

Whereat his horse did snort, as he 205 

Had heard a lion roar, 
And galloped off with all his might, 

As he had done before. 



THE HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 193 

Away went Gilpin, and away 

Went Gilpin's hat and wig : 210 

He lost them sooner than at first ; 

For why ? — they were too big. 

Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw 

Her husband posting down 
Into the country far away, 215 

She pulled out half-a-crown ; 

And thus unto the youth she said 

That drove them to the Bell, 
" This shall be yours, when you bring back 

My husband safe and well." 220 

The youth did ride, and soon did meet 

John coming back amain : 
Whom in a trice he tried to stop, 

By catching at his rein ; 

But not performing what he meant, 225 

And gladly would have done, 
The frighted steed he frighted more, 

And made him faster run. 

Away went Gilpin, and away 

Went postboy at his heels, 230 

The postboy's horse right glad to miss 

The lumbering of the wheels. 

Six gentlemen upon the road, 

Thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
With postboy scampering in the rear, 235 

They raised the hue and cry : 



194 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

" Stop thief ! stop thief ! — a highway-man ! " 

Not one of them was mute ; 
And all and each that passed that way 

Did join in the pursuit. 240 

And now the turnpike gates again 

Flew open in short space ; 
The toll-men thinking, as before, 

That Gilpin rode a race. 

And so he did, and won it too, 245 

For he got first to town ; 
Nor stopped till where he had got up 

He did again get down. 

Now let us sing, Long live the king ! 

And Gilpin, long live he ! 250 

And when he next doth ride abroad 

May I be there to see ! 



ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. 

WRITTEN WHEN THE NEWS ARRIVED. 
To the march in " ScipioP 

Toll for the brave ! 

The brave that are no more ! 
All sunk beneath the wave, 

Fast by their native shore ! 

Eight hundred of the brave, 
Whose courage well was tried, 

Had made the vessel heel, 
And laid her on her side. 






ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. 195 

A land-breeze shook the shrouds, 

And she was overset; 10 

Down went the Royal George, 

With all her crew complete. 

Toll for the brave ! 

Brave Kempenfelt is gone ; 
His last sea-fight is fought ; 15 

His work of glory done. 

It was not in the battle ; 

No tempest gave the shock ; 
She sprang no fatal leak ; 

She ran upon no rock. 20 

His sword was in its sheath ; 

His fingers held the pen, 
When Kempenfelt went down 

With twice four hundred men. 

W^eigh the vessel up, 25 

Once dreaded by our foes ! 
And mingle with our cup 

The tears that England owes. 

Her timbers yet are sound, 

And she may float again 3° 

Full charged with England's thunder, 

And plough the distant main. 

But Kempenfelt is gone, 

His victories are o'er ; 
And he and his eight hundred 35 

Shall plough the wave no more. 



196 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 



EPITAPH ON A HARE. 

Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue, 

Nor swifter greyhound follow, 
Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew, 

Nor ear heard huntsman's halloo ; 

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, 5 

Who, nursed with tender care, 
And to domestic bounds confined, 

Was still a wild Jack hare. 

Though duly from my hand he took 

His pittance every night, i° 

He did it with a jealous look, 

And, when he could, would bite. 

His diet was of wheaten bread, 

And milk, and oats, and straw ; 
Thistles, or lettuces instead, 15 

With sand to scour his maw. 

On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, 

On pippins' russet peel, 
And, when his juicy salads failed, 

Sliced carrot pleased him well. 20 

A Turkey carpet was his lawn, 

Whereon he loved to bound, 
To skip and gambol like a fawn, 

And swing his rump around. 

His frisking was at evening hours, 25 

For then he lost his fear, 
But most before approaching showers, 

Or when a storm drew near. 



THE ROSE. 197 

Eight years and five round-rolling moons 

He thus saw steal away, 30 

Dozing out all his idle noons, 
And every night at play. 

I kept him for his humour's sake, 

For he would oft beguile 
My heart of thoughts that made it ache, 35 

And force me to a smile. 

But now beneath this walnut shade 

He finds his long last home, 
And waits, in snug concealment laid, 

Till gentler Puss shall come. 4° 

He, still more aged, feels the shocks 

From which no care can save, 
And, partner once of Tiney's box, 

Must soon partake his grave. 



THE ROSE. 

The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, 

Which Mary to Anna conveyed, 
The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, 

And weighed down its beautiful head. 

The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet, 

And it seemed, to a fanciful view, 
To weep for the buds it had left with regret 

On the flourishing bush where it grew. 

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was 

For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned ; 

And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas ! 
I snapped it — it fell to the ground. 



198 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

"And such," I exclaimed, "is the pitiless part 

Some act by the delicate mind, 
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart 

Already to sorrow resigned ! 

" This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, 
Might have bloomed with its owner awhile ; 

And the tear that is wiped with a little address 
May be followed perhaps by a smile." 



THE POPLAR FIELD. 

The poplars are felled ; farewell to the shade, 
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade 
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves, 
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. 

Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view 5 

Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew ; 
And now in the grass behold they are laid, 
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade ! 

The blackbird has fled to another retreat, 
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat, 10 
And the scene where his melody charmed me before 
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more. 

My fugitive years are all hasting away, 

And I must ere long lie as lowly as they, 

With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head, l S 

Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead. 



THE DOG AND THE WATER-LILY. 199 

'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can, 
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man ; 
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see, 
Have a being less durable even than he. 20 



THE DOG AND THE WATER-LILY. 

NO FABLE. 

The noon was shady, and soft airs 

Swept Ouse's silent tide, 
When, 'scaped from literary cares, 

I wandered on his side. 

My spaniel, prettiest of his race, 5 

And high in pedigree, 
(Two nymphs adorned with every grace 

That spaniel found for me) 

Now wantoned, lost in flags and reeds, 

Now starting into sight, 10 

Pursued the swallow o'er the meads 
With scarce a slower flight. 

It was the time when Ouse displayed 

His lilies newly blown ; 
Their beauties I intent surveyed 15 

And one I wished my own. 

With cane extended far, I sought 

To steer it close to land ; 
But still the prize, though nearly caught, 

Escaped my eager hand. 20 



200 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Beau marked my unsuccessful pains 

With fixed considerate face, 
And puzzling set his puppy brains 

To comprehend the case. 

But with a cherup clear and strong 25 

Dispersing all his dream, 
I thence withdrew, and followed long 

The windings of the stream. 

My ramble ended, I returned ; 

Beau, trotting far before, 3° 

The floating wreath again discerned, 

And plunging left the shore. 

I saw him with that lily cropped 

Impatient swim to meet 
My quick approach, and soon he dropped 35 

The treasure at my feet. 

Charmed with the sight, "The world," I cried, 

" Shall hear of this thy deed : 
My dog shall mortify the pride 

Of man's superior breed : 40 

But chief myself I will enjoin, 

Awake at duty's call, 
To show a love as prompt as thine 

To Him who gives me all." 



THE NEEDLESS ALARM. 201 



THE NEEDLESS ALARM. 

A TALE. 

There is a field through which I often pass, 

Thick overspread with moss and silky grass, 

Adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood, 

Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood, 

Reserved to solace many a neighbouring squire, 5 

That he may follow them through brake and brier, 

Contusion hazarding of neck or spine, 

Which rural gentlemen call sport divine. 

A narrow brook, by rushy banks concealed, 

Runs in a bottom, and divides the field ; 10 

Oaks intersperse it, that had once a head, 

But now wear crests of oven-wood instead ; 

And where the land slopes to its watery bourn ^ 

Wide yawns a gulf beside a ragged thorn ; 

Bricks line the sides, but shivered long ago, 15 

And horrid brambles intertwine below ; 

A hollow scooped, I judge, in ancient time, 

For baking earth, or burning rock to lime. 

Not yet the hawthorn bore her berries red, 
With which the fieldfare, wintry guest, is fed ; 20 

Nor Autumn yet had brushed from every spray, 
With her chill hand, the mellow leaves away; 
But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack ; 
Now therefore issued forth the spotted pack, 
With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats 25 
With a whole gamut filled of heavenly notes, 
For which, alas ! my destiny severe, 
Though ears she gave me two, gave me no ear. 

The sun, accomplishing his early march, 
His lamp now planted on heaven's topmost arch, 3° 



202 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

When, exercise and air my only aim, 

And heedless whither, to that field I came, 

Ere yet with ruthless joy the happy hound 

Told hill and dale that Reynard's track was found, 

Or with the high-raised horn's melodious clang 35 

All Kilwick and all Dinglederry rang. 

Sheep grazed the field ; some with soft bosom pressed 
The herb as soft, while nibbling strayed the rest ; 
Nor noise was heard but of the hasty brook, 
Struggling, detained in many a petty nook. 4° 

All seemed so peaceful, that from them conveyed, 
To me their peace by kind contagion spread. 

But when the huntsman, with distended cheek, 
'Gan make his instrument of music speak, 
And from within the wood that crash was heard, 45 

Though not a hound from whom it burst appeared, 
The sheep recumbent and the sheep that grazed, 
All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed, 
Admiring, terrified, the novel strain, 

Then coursed the field around, and coursed it round again ; 5° 
But recollecting, with a sudden thought, 
That flight in circles urged advanced them nought, 
They gathered close around the old pit's brink, 
And thought again — but knew not what to think. 

The man to solitude accustomed long 55 

Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue ; 
Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees 
Have speech for him, and understood with ease ; 
After long drought, when rains abundant fall, 
He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all ; 6o 

Knows what the freshness of their hue implies, 
How glad they catch the largess of the skies ; 
But, with precision nicer still, the mind 
He scans of every locomotive kind ; 



THE NEEDLESS ALARM. 203 

Birds of all feather, beasts of every name, 65 

That serve mankind or shun them, wild or tame ; 

The looks and gestures of their griefs and fears 

Have all articulation in his ears ; 

He spells them true by intuition's light, 

And needs no glossary to set him right. 70 

This truth premised was needful as a text, 
To win due credence to what follows next. 

Awhile they mused ; surveying every face, 
Thou hadst supposed them of superior race ; 
Their periwigs of wool and fears combined 75 

Stamped on each countenance such marks of mind, 
That sage they seemed, as lawyers o'er a doubt, 
Which, puzzling long, at last they puzzle out ; 
Or academic tutors, teaching youths, 

Sure ne'er to want them, mathematic truths ; 80 

When thus a mutton statelier than the rest, 
A Ram, the ewes and wethers sad addressed : 

" Friends ! we have lived too long. I never heard 
Sounds such as these, so worthy to be feared. 
Could I believe, that winds for ages pent 85 

In earth's dark womb have found at last a vent, 
And from their prison-house below arise, 
With all these hideous howlings to the skies, 
I could be much composed, nor should appear, 
For such a cause, to feel the slightest fear. 9° 

Yourselves have seen, what time the thunders rolled 
All night, me resting quiet in the fold. 
Or heard we that tremendous bray alone, 
I could expound the melancholy tone ; 

Should deem it by our old companion made, 95 

The Ass ; for he, we know, has lately strayed, 
And being lost, perhaps, and wandering wide, 
Might be supposed to clamour for a guide. 



204 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

But ah ! those dreadful yells what soul can hear 

That owns a carcass, and not quake for fear ? ioo 

Demons produce them doubtless, brazen-clawed, 

And fanged with brass, the demons are abroad ; 

I hold it therefore wisest and most fit 

That, life to save, we leap into the pit." 

Him answered then his loving mate and true, 105 

But more discreet than he, a Cambrian Ewe : 

" How ! leap into the pit our life to save ? 
To save our life leap all into the grave ? 
For can we find it less ? Contemplate first 
The depth how awful ! falling there, we burst: no 

Or should the brambles interposed our fall 
In part abate, that happiness were small ; 
For with a race like theirs no chance I see 
Of peace or ease to creatures clad as we. 
Meantime, noise kills not. Be it Dapple's bray> 115 

Or be it not, or be it whose it may, 
And rush those other sounds, that seem by tongues 
Of demons uttered, from whatever lungs, 
Sounds are but sounds, and, till the cause appear, 
We have at least commodious standing here. 120 

Come fiend, come fury, giant, monster, blast 
From earth or hell, we can but plunge at last." 

While thus she spake, I fainter heard the peals, 
For Reynard, close attended at his heels 
By panting dog, tired man, and spattered horse, 125 

Through mere good fortune took a different course. 
The flock grew calm again, and I, the road 
Following, that led me to my own abode, 
Much wondered that the silly sheep had found 
Such cause of terror in an empty sound, 13° 

So sweet to huntsman, gentleman, and hound. 



MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. 205 



MORAL. 

Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, 
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away. 



ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE 
OUT OF NORFOLK; 

THE GIFT OF MY COUSIN, ANN BODHAM. 

Oh that those lips had language ! Life has passed 
With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smile I see, 
The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; 
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, 
V Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away ! " 
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes 
(Blessed be the art that can immortalize, 
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim 
To quench it) here shines on me still the same. ] 

Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 

welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
Who bidst me honour with an artless song, 
Affectionate, a mother lost so long, 

1 will obey, not willingly alone, ] 
But gladly, as the precept were her own : 

And, while that face renews my filial grief, 

Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, 

Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, 

A momentary dream that thou art she. 5 

My mother ! when I learnt that thou wast dead, 
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, 



206 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ? 

Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss : 25 

Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — 

Ah, that maternal smile ! It answers — Yes. 

I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, 

I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, 

And, turning from my nursery window, drew 30 

A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu ! 

But was it such ? — It was. — Where thou art gone 

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. 

May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, 

The parting word shall pass my lips no more ! 35 

Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, 

Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. 

What ardently I wished I long believed, 

And, disappointed still, was still deceived. 

By expectation every day beguiled, 40 

Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. 

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, 

Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, 

I learnt at last submission to my lot ; 

But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. 45 

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, 
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor ; 
And where the gardener Robin, day by day, 
Drew me to school along the public way, 
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped 5° 

In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped, 
'Tis now become a history little known, 
That once we called the pastoral house our own. 
Short-lived possession ! but the record fair 
That memory keeps, of all thy kindness there, 55 

Still outlives many a storm that has effaced 
A thousand other themes less deeply traced. 



MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. 207 

Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, 

That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid ; 

Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 60 

The biscuit, or confectionary plum ; 

The fragrant waters on my cheek bestowed 

By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed ; 

All this, and more endearing still than all, 

Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, 65 

Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes 

That humour interposed too often makes ; 

All this still legible in memory's page, 

And still to be so to my latest age, 

Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay 70 

Such honours to thee as my numbers may ; 

Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, 

Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. 

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, 
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, 75 

The violet, the pink, and jessamine, 
I pricked them into paper with a pin 
(And thou wast happier than myself the while, 
Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile), 
Could those few pleasant days again appear, 80 

Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here ? 
I would not trust my heart — the dear delight 
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might. — 
But no — what here we call our life is such 
So little to be loved, and thou so much, 85 

That I should ill requite thee to constrain 
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. 

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast 
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed) 
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, 9° 

Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, 



208 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

There sits quiescent on the floods that show 

Her beauteous form reflected clear below, 

While airs impregnated with incense play 

Around her, fanning light her streamers gay ; 95 

So thou, with sails how swift ! hast reached the shore, 

" Where tempests never beat nor billows roar," 

And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide 

Of life long since has anchored by thy side. 

But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 100 

Always from port withheld, always distressed — 

Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tost, 

Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost, 

And day by day some current's thwarting force 

Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. 105 

Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he ! 

That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. 

My boast is not, that I deduce my birth 

From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth ; 

But higher far my proud pretensions rise — no 

The son of parents passed into the skies ! 

And now, farewell — Time unrevoked has run 

His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. 

By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, 

I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again ; "5 

To have renewed the joys that once were mine, 

Without the sin of violating thine : 

And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, 

And I can view this mimic show of thee, 

Time has but half succeeded in his theft — I2 ° 

Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. 



YARD LEY OAK. 209 

YARDLEY OAK. 

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all 

That once lived here, thy brethren ! — at my birth 

(Since which I number threescore winters past) 

A shattered veteran, hollow-trunked perhaps, 

As now, and with excoriate forks deform, 5 

Relics of ages ! — could a mind, imbued 

With truth from Heaven, created thing adore, 

I might with reverence kneel and worship thee. 

It seems idolatry with some excuse, 
When our forefather Druids in their oaks 10 

Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet 
Unpurified by an authentic act 
Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine, 
Loved not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom 
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste 15 

Of fruit proscribed, as to a refuge, fled. 

Thou wast a bauble once ; a cup and ball, 
Which babes might play with ; and the thievish jay, 
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined 
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down 20 

Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, 
And all thine embryo vastness, at a gulp. 
But fate thy growth decreed ; autumnal rains 
Beneath thy parent tree mellowed the soil 
Designed thy cradle ; and a skipping deer, 25 

With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepared 
The soft receptacle, in which, secure, 
Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. 

So fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can, 
Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search 3° 

Of argument, employed too oft amiss, 
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away I 



210 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Thou fell'st mature ; and in the loamy clod 
Swelling with vegetative force instinct 

Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins, 35 

Now stars ; two lobes, protruding, paired exact ; 
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf, 
And, all the elements thy puny growth 
Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig. 

Who lived when thou wast such ? Oh, couldst thou speak, 40 
As in Dodona once thy kindred trees 
Oracular, I would not curious ask 
The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth 
Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past. 

By thee I might correct, erroneous oft, 45 

The clock of history, facts and events 
Timing more punctual, unrecorded facts 
Recovering, and misstated setting right — 
Desperate attempt, till trees shall speak again ! 

Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods, 5° 
And Time hath made thee what thou art — a cave 
For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs 
O'erhung the champaign ; and the numerous flocks 
That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope 
Uncrowded, yet safe-sheltered from the storm. 55 

No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outlived 
Thy popularity, and art become 
(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing 
Forgotten, as the foliage of thy youth. 

While thus through all the stages thou hast pushed 60 
Of treeship — first a seedling, hid in grass ; 
Then twig ; then sapling ; and, as century rolled 
Slow after century, a giant-bulk 
Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root 
Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossed 65 

With prominent wens globose, — till at the last 



YARD LEY OAK. 211 

The rottenness, which Time is charged to inflict 
On other mighty ones, found also thee. 

What exhibitions various hath the world 
Witnessed, of mutability in all 70 

That we account most durable below ! 
Change is the diet on which all subsist, 
Created changeable, and change at last 
Destroys them. Skies uncertain, now the heat 
Transmitting cloudless, and the solar beam 75 

Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds, — 
Calm and alternate storm, moisture and drought, 
Invigorate by turns the springs of life 
In all that live, plant, animal, and man, 
And in conclusion mar them. Nature's threads, 80 

Fine passing thought, even in her coarsest works, 
Delight in agitation, yet sustain 
The force that agitates, not unimpaired ; 
But, worn by frequent impulse, to the cause 
Of their best tone their dissolution owe. 8 5 

Thought cannot spend itself, comparing still 
The great and little of thy lot, thy growth 
From almost nullity into a state 
Of matchless grandeur, and declension thence, 
Slow, into such magnificent decay. 9° 

Time was when, settling on thy leaf, a fly 
Could shake thee to the root — and time has been 
When tempests could not. At thy firmest age 
Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents, 
That might have ribbed the sides and planked the deck 95 
Of some flagged admiral ; and tortuous arms, 
The shipwright's darling treasure, didst present 
To the four-quartered winds, robust and bold, 
Warped into tough knee-timber, many a load ! 
But the axe spared thee. In those thriftier days 100 



212 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply 

The bottomless demands of contest waged 

For senatorial honours. Thus to Time 

The task was left to whittle thee away 

With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge, io 5 

Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more, 

Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserved, 

Achieved a labour, which had, far and wide, 

By man performed, made all the forest ring. 

Embowelled now, and of thy ancient self no 

Possessing nought but the scooped rind, — that seems 
A huge throat calling to the clouds for drink, 
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root, — 
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbiddest 
The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite. "S 

Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock, 
A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs, 
Which, crooked into a thousand whimsies, clasp 
The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect. 

So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet I2 ° 

Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, 
Though all the superstructure, by the tooth 
Pulverized of venality, a shell 
Stands now, and semblance only of itself ! 

Thine arms have left thee. Winds have rent them off I2 5 
Long since, and rovers of the forest wild 
With bow and shaft have burnt them. Some have left 
A splintered stump, bleached to a snowy white : 
And some memorial none, where once they grew. 
Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth 13° 

Proof not contemptible of what she can, 
Even where death predominates. The Spring 
Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force 
Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood, 



YARDLEY OAK. 213 

So much thy juniors, who their birth received 135 

Half a millennium since the date of thine. 

But since, although well qualified by age 
To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice 
May be expected from thee, seated here 
On thy distorted root, with hearers none, 14° 

Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform 
Myself the oracle, and will discourse 
In my own ear such matter as I may. 

One man alone, the father of us all, 
Drew not his life from woman ; never gazed, J 45 

With mute unconsciousness of what he saw, 
On all around him ; learned not by degrees, 
Nor owed articulation to his ear ; 
But moulded by his Maker into man 

At once, upstood intelligent, surveyed 15° 

All creatures, with precision understood 
Their purport, uses, properties ; assigned 
To each his name significant, and, filled 
With love and wisdom, rendered back to Heaven 
In praise harmonious the first air he drew. 155 

He was excused the penalties of dull 
Minority. No tutor charged his hand 
With the thought-tracing quill, or tasked his mind 
With problems. History, not wanted yet, 
Leaned on her elbow, watching Time, whose course, 160 

Eventful, should supply her with a theme. 



214 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

TO MARY. 

The twentieth year is well-nigh past, 
Since first our sky was overcast ; 
Ah, would that this might be the last ! 

My Mary ! 

Thy spirits have a fainter flow, 5 

I see thee daily weaker grow ; 

'T was my distress that brought thee low, 

My Mary ! 

Thy needles, once a shining store, 
For my sake restless heretofore, 10 

Now rust disused, and shine no more, 

My Mary ! 

For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil 
The same kind office for me still, 
Thy sight now seconds not thy will, 15 

My Mary ! 

But well thou playedst the housewife's part, 
And all thy threads with magic art 
Have wound themselves about this heart, 

My Mary ! 20 

Thy indistinct expressions seem 
Like language uttered in a dream ; 
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme, 

My Mary ! 

Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, 25 

Are still more lovely in my sight 
Than golden beams of orient light, 

My Mary ! 



TO MARY. 215 

For, could I view nor them nor thee, 

What sight worth seeing could I see ? 3° 

The sun would rise in vain for me, 

My Mary ! 

Partakers of thy sad decline, 
Thy hands their little force resign ; 
Yet, gently prest, press gently mine, 35 

My Mary ! 

Such feebleness of limbs thou provest 
That now at every step thou movest 
Upheld by two, yet still thou lovest, 

My Mary ! 40 

And still to love, though prest with ill, 
In wintry age to feel no chill, 
With me is to be lovely still, 

My Mary ! 

But ah ! by constant heed I know, 45 

How oft the sadness that I show 
Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe, 

My Mary! 

And should my future lot be cast 
With much resemblance of the past, 5° 

Thy worn-out heart will break at last, 

My Mary ! 



216 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 



THE CASTAWAY. 

Obscurest night involved the sky, 

The Atlantic billows roared, 
When such a destined wretch as I, 

Washed headlong from on board, 
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, 5 

His floating home for ever left. 

No braver chief could Albion boast 

Than he with whom he went, 
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast 

With warmer wishes sent. 10 

He loved them both, but both in vain, 
Nor him beheld, nor her again. 

Not long beneath the whelming brine, 

Expert to swim, he lay ; 
Nor soon he felt his strength decline, 15 

Or courage die away ; 
But waged with death a lasting strife, 
Supported by despair of life. 

He shouted : nor his friends had failed 

To check the vessel's course, 20 

But so the furious blast prevailed, 
That, pitiless perforce, 

They left their outcast mate behind, 

And scudded still before the wind. 

Some succour yet they could afford ; 25 

And such as storms allow, 
The cask, the coop, the floated cord, 

Delayed not to bestow. 



THE CASTAWAY. 217 

But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore, 

Whate'er they gave, should visit more. 30 

Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he 

Their haste himself condemn, 
Aware that flight, in such a sea, 

Alone could rescue them ; 
Yet bitter felt it still to die 35 

Deserted, and his friends so nigh. 

He long survives, who lives an hour 

In ocean, self-upheld ; 
And so long he, with unspent power, 

His destiny repelled ; 4° 

And ever, as the minutes flew, 
Entreated help, or cried " Adieu ! " 

At length, his transient respite past, 

His comrades, who before 
Had heard his voice in every blast, 45 

Could catch the sound no more : 
For then, by toil subdued, he drank 
The stifling wave, and then he sank. 

No poet wept him ; but the page 

Of narrative sincere, 5° 

That tells his name, his worth, his age, 

Is wet with Anson's tear : 
And tears by bards or heroes shed 
Alike immortalize the dead. 

I therefore purpose not, or dream, 55 

Descanting on his fate, 
To give the melancholy theme 

A more enduring date : 



218 SELECTIONS FROM COWPER. 

But misery still delights to trace 

Its semblance in another's case. 60 

No voice divine the storm allayed, 

No light propitious shone, 
When, snatched from all effectual aid, 

We perished, each alone : 
But I beneath a rougher sea, 65 

And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he. 



NOTES. 



THE TASK. 



BOOK I. — THE SOFA. 

1 1. I sing the Sofa. " The history of the following production is 
briefly this : A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of that 
kind from the author, and gave him the Sofa for a subject. He obeyed; 
and having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and pur- 
suing the train of thought to which his situation and turn of mind led 
him, brought forth at length, instead of the trifle which he at first 
intended, a serious affair — a Volume " (from advertisement to First 
Edition). 

1 2. Truth, Hope, and Charity. Three of a series of poems by 
Cowper, published in 1782, the first of which, suggested by Mrs. 
Unwin, was The Progress of Error. 

1 7. The Fair. Lady Austen. 

2 n. Shaggy pile. The thick nap of plush or velvet. 

2 22. Immortal Alfred. Alfred the Great in an old woodcut is 
represented as sitting on a three-legged stool in a herdsman's hut. 
2 32. Induced a splendid cover. Verb used in classical sense. 

2 44. But restless. Here with secondary meaning, giving no rest. 

3 54. Scarlet crewel. Slackly twisted worsted used in embroidery. 
3 61. An alderman of Cripplegate. Stow, in his Survey of London 

1598, says : " The next ward is called of Cripplesgate, and consisteth of 
divers streets and lanes, lying as well without the gate and wall of the 
city as within." It is noted as containing St. Giles church, where 
Milton was buried, and also Grub Street, famous as the haunt of poor 
authors. 

3 78. Two kings of Brentford. Characters in The Rehearsal, a 
play by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. 



220 NOTES. 

4 94-102. Cf. similar structure of verse in Paradise Lost, Book IV, 
11. 650-657. 

5 144. Dear companion of my walks. Mrs. Unwin. "Mrs. Unwin 
and I have for many years walked thither [Weston] every day in the 
year, when the weather would permit " (letter to Lady Hesketh, May 1, 
1786). 

6 154. Yon eminence. Known in Cowper's letters as the Cliff. 
Cowper, however, writes to Lady Hesketh, Nov. 26, 1786: " What is 
called, the Cliff, is no cliff, nor at all like one, but a beautiful ter- 
race, sloping gently down to the Ouse, and from the brow of which, 
though not lofty, you have a view of such a valley as makes that which 
you see from the hills near Olney and which I have had the honour to 
celebrate, an affair of no consideration." 

6 155-180. Cowper, like Wordsworth, was a close and accurate 
observer of all natural scenery. Professor Winchester calls attention 
to this passage " as almost the first example in eighteenth-century 
poetry of a scene described with absolute fidelity, in simple language, 
and for its own sake." 

6 173. Square tower. The church tower of Clifton Reynes. 

6 174. Tall spire. The spire of Olney church " is octagonal, rises 
from a cornice of masks and flowers, has four small lights with cano- 
pied heads on the north, east, south, and west sides, each of which is 
surmounted with a cross, and is 185 feet in height" {Town of Cowper, 
p. 29). 

7 200. And one. The nightingale. 

7 211. Devised the weather-house. Called also weather-box; shows 
weather changes by the advance or retreat of toy figures. 

8 215-216. The country about Olney is so flat as to be frequently 
under water. In a letter to Newton, March 6, 1782, Cowper says: 
" No winter since we knew Olney has kept us more closely confined 
than the present ; either the ways have been so dirty or the weather so 
rough, that we have not more than three times escaped into the fields 
since last autumn. This does not suit Mrs. Unwin, to whom air and 
exercise, her only remedies, are almost absolutely necessary." 

8 227. The Peasant's Nest. In Cowper's time a picturesque cot- 
tage, with thatched roof, and half hidden by trees. Still there. 

9 252. A length of colonnade. The avenue of chestnut trees 
alluded to in 1. 263. The walk through is a sharp descent, as described 
in 11. 266, 267. 

9 262. Benevolus. John Courtenay Throckmorton, of Weston 
Underwood. 



NOTES. Ill 

9 267. A rustic bridge. " This bridge, consisting of one arch, 
spanned the brook, which after winding along a woody valley meanders 
through the Park and crosses the road from Olney to Northampton at 
a place called Hobrook " {Rural Walks of Cowper, p. 46). 

9 272-273. " I was interested to notice a few years ago, while walking 
up the gentle hill, that the mole is still at work there, and was reminded 
by a stumble that the description is still literally true" (MS. note by 
Professor Winchester). 

9 278. Behold the proud alcove. Climbing the steep walk that 
borders the northern extremity of the Park, one is brought to the 
alcove, a sort of summer-house, hexagonal in shape, open on three 
sides. 

10 289. Speculative height. Affording a commanding view, incor- 
rectly used in this sense. 

10, 11 300-320. Cf. Chaucer's description of trees in the Parlement 
of Foules, stanza 26. This passage furnishes another instance of Cow- 
per's close and faithful observation. 

11 323. The Ouse, dividing, etc. " At Olney the Ouse changes its 
character, and its course becomes so winding that the distance from 
that place to St. Neots, which is about twenty miles by land, is about 
seventy by the stream " {Life of Cowper, Southey, vol. i, p. 203). 

11 328. A little naiad. The naiad in Greek mythology was a 
nymph presiding over fountains and streams. Cowper has here per- 
sonified as one of the naiads a " narrow channel cut for the purpose of 
draining the hollow." 

11 331. The lord of this enclosed demesne. Mr. Throckmorton, 
Benevolus in 1. 262. 

11 341-349. The avenue of lime trees, which Mr. Throckmorton pre- 
served with the greatest care. " By the help of the axe arid the wood- 
bill, which of late have been constantly employed in cutting out all 
straggling branches that intercepted the arch, Mr. Throckmorton has 
now defined it with such exactness that no cathedral in the world can 
show one of more magnificence or beauty " (letter to Lady Hesketh, 
July 28, 1788). 

12 351. We tread the Wilderness. Passing from the avenue of 
limes, through a gate one enters the wilderness, the trees and plants of 
which are described in Book VI, 11. 141-185. 

15 455. The spleen, etc. Melancholy. 

15 471. The passion for gaming at cards was rife in London society. 
It was eminently fashionable. Cf. Pope's description of the game of 
Ombre, Rape of the Lock, Canto III, 11. 25-100. 



222 NOTES. 

17 527. With prickly gorse. Spelled goss in first edition; its col- 
loquial pronunciation. " Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss," 
Tempest, Act IV, sc. i, 1. 161. 

17 531. Smells fresh. " We have a scent in the fields about Olney, 
that to me is . . . agreeable and which, even after attentive examina- 
tion, I have never been able to account for. ... I had a strong 
poetical desire to describe it when I was writing The Task " (letter to 
Lady Hesketh, Dec. 6, 1785). 

17 534. There often wanders one. Crazy Kate, described in 11. 534- 
556, is drawn from life (letter to Hill, May 24, 1788). 

18 559. A vagabond and useless tribe. According to a quotation 
from The Art of Juggling, etc., by S. R. Loudon, 161 2, in Notes and 
Queries, vol. xi, p. 326, 1st ser., we learn that " gypsies first appeared 
in England about 1512. They came from Egypt and "spoke the right 
Egyptian language." They had a king and queen and " got much by 
palmistry and telling of fortunes." 

18 570. Great skill have they in palmistry. Palmistry, fortune tell- 
ing from the lines in the palm of the hand, a favorite device with gypsies. 

19 620. The favoured isles. The Society and Friendly Islands; 
the former discovered by Captain Cook in 1768. 

20 633. Thee, gentle savage. Omai, brought over by Captain 
Cook as an interpreter. He was received at court ; his portrait painted 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; was praised by Dr. Johnson for the polish of 
his manners. After his return to Otaheite, he is said to have pined for 
the amenities of English society. 

20 644. Our gardens. Vauxhall and Ranelagh Gardens, places of 
popular resort in London, were in Cowper's time in their full splendor. 

22 700. There, touched by Reynolds. The great English painter, 
born 1740, died 1792, then in the height of his fame. 

22 702. Bacon there. John Bacon, R. A., a sculptor of some dis- 
tinction, and a friend of Newton and Cowper. He carved the statue 
of Lord Chatham in Westminster Abbey, praised by Cowper in a 
letter to Newton, Oct. 22, 1783. 

22 713-718. An allusion to the work carried on at Greenwich Observ- 
atory by the royal astronomers. 

23 732. Rigid in denouncing death. Old English laws made steal- 
ing from a person or from a house to the amount of 40s. a capital 
offense. Sir Samuel Romilly secured their repeal in 1810-11. 

23 736. He that puts. Lord Clive. Cowper, however, felt kindly 
toward his old schoolfellow, Warren Hastings. In some lines to him, 
written 1792, Cowper said : 



NOTES. Ill 

Nor can I well believe thee, gentle then, 
Now grown a villain and the worst of men. 

23 739. Cf. Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii, " It is not nor it cannot come to 
good." 

23 749. God made the country. It is lines like this which afford 
ground for comparison between Cowper and Rousseau. 

23 755. In chariots and sedans. Sedan, a portable covered chair 
for a single person, said to be so named from Sedan in France, where 
they were first made. Introduced into England 1581. 

24 774. A mutilated structure, soon to fall. Cowper held gloomy 
views about the future of England in connection with her loss of the 
American colonies. He wrote Newton, Feb. 24, 1783: "As to the 
Americans, perhaps I do not forgive them as I ought : perhaps I shall 
always think of them as the destroyers, intentionally the destroyers of 
this country." 

BOOK II. — THE TIME-PIECE. 

Newton had ventured some strictures on the title of the poem, The 
Task. In replying, Cowper said : " The Time-Piece appears to me 
(though by some accident the import of that title has escaped you) 
to have a degree of propriety beyond the most of them. The book to 
which it belongs is intended to strike the hour that gives notice of 
approaching judgment" (letter to Newton, Dec. n, 1784). 

25 1. Oh for a lodge. Cf. Jer. 9:2. 

25 12. Guilty of a skin. " I was one of the earliest, if not the first 
of those, who have in the present day, expressed their detestation of the 
diabolical traffic in question" (letter to Lady Hesketh, Feb. 16, 1788). 

26 40. Slaves cannot breathe in England. Lord Mansfield in the 
case of Somerset, June 22, 1772, gave the decision that "Slaves cannot 
breathe in England." The slave trade was abolished in 181 r. The act 
abolishing slavery in all British colonies was passed in 1834. 

27 53-60. The island of Jamaica was swept by a succession of great 
hurricanes from January, 1780-86. 

27 64. With a dim and sickly eye. An allusion to the remarkable 
prevalence of fogs. " I am and always have been a great observer of 
natural appearances. ... It is impossible for an observer of natural 
phenomena not to be struck with the singularity of the present season. 
The fogs I mentioned in my last still continue, though till yesterday 
the earth was as dry as intense heat could make it " (letter to Newton, 
June 13, 1783). This fog prevailed in Asia as well as Europe. 



224 NOTES. 

27 75. Alas for Sicily. In 1782 Sicily was devastated by earth- 
quakes. The city of Messina was in ruins. The survivors, it is said, 
were fewer than the corpses they had to bury. 

27 80. A syncope. Here used to signify a sudden stop. 

28 91. Cf. Ps. 18:7; 144:5. 

28 92. For He has touched them. Cf. Ps. 104 : 32. 
28 102. Or with vortiginous. Apparently a word coined by Cowper 
to signify. the engorging action of a whirlpool. 

28 107-110. " The surface of two whole tenements with large olive 
and mulberry trees therein had been detached by the earthquake and 
transplanted, the trees still remaining in their places, to the distance of 
a mile from their former situation " (quoted in Clarendon Press Ed. 
of Cowper). 

28, 29 111-121. Description of the earthquakes in Sicily which de- 
stroyed Messina and its Prince. 

29 150. Cf. Luke 13:2-5. 

31 203. Dress thine eyes with eye-salve. Cf. Rev. 3: 18. 

31 214. Nor for Ausonia's groves. Italy : 

Quae tandem Ausonia Teneros considere terra 

Invidia est ? , r . ., TTT 

Virgil, IV, 349. 

32 225-232. " Pitt himself could have done nothing with such tools ; 
but he would not have been so betrayed : he would have made the 
traitors answer with their heads, for their cowardice or supineness, and 
their punishment would have made survivors active" (letter to Unwin, 
1781). 

32 229. Myrtle wreath. Worn by the Romans at their banquets. 
Horace, Odes, Lib. I, 38, 1. 7. 

32 231. Hand upon the ark. Cf. 2 Sam. 6 : 6. 

32 242. Wolfe upon the lap, etc. Sir John Wolfe, in command of 
English forces at the capture of Quebec. Died upon the field. 

32 244. Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame. Chatham 
died May 14, 1778. "A great statesman, full of years and honours, 
led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken 
down in full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the droop- 
ing spirits of his country, could not but be remembered with peculiar 
veneration and tenderness " (Macaulay's Essays, vol. vi, p. 109). 

32, 33 255-284. Cowper, as his letters show, uniformly attributed 
England's loss of the American colonies to the aid rendered by France 
to America. 



NOTES. 225 

34 315. Cowper's view of the province of Satire was much more re- 
stricted than that of Pope. Cf . the line of the latter : 

It heals with morals what it hurts with vvit. 

34 318. Or displace a patch. An allusion to the fashion among 
ladies of wearing black patches on the face. See the Spectator, No. 8i, 
where Addison discoursed on the custom. 

35 351. But hark, — the Doctor's voice. Dr. John Trusler, a ser- 
mon-broker. The Record for Nov. n, 1852, is said to contain the fol- 
lowing advertisement. " Important to clergymen. A few sets of Dr. 
Trusler's facsimile manuscript sermons may still be procured at the 
low price of half a guinea for the set of 100 sermons." 

35 353. Inspires the TTews, his trumpet. Probably some news- 
paper in which Trusler's advertisement appeared between two other 
advertised nostrums. 

36 385. Constant at routs. Fashionable evening parties. 

37-39 395-480. Cf. Chaucer's clerk of Oxenford, Dryden's character 
of a good parson, and Goldsmith's portrait of the village preacher in 
his Deserted Village. 

37 417. All affectation. In reference to the plainness of speech 
which a spiritual theme requires. Cowper wrote to Newton, May 5, 
1783, "Affectation of every sort is odious, especially in a minister and 
more especially an affectation that betrays him into expressions fit only 
for the mouths of the illiterate." 

38 436-437. The nasal twang . . . heard at conventicle. Puritan 
divines were often described as preaching through their noses, and the 
Puritan house of worship is called a conventicle, not a church. 

38 451. The better hand. The right hand. 

39 488. Rivelled lips. Shrivelled. 

41 532-533. Shades of Academus. The grove on the Cephissus near 
Athens, where Plato taught philosophy. 

41 540. Epictetus, Plato, Tully. Epictetus, the freedman of Nero, 
who taught the stoic philosophy at Rome. Plato, the Greek philosopher. 
Tully, Cicero, the Roman advocate and philosopher. 

42 580. What was a monitor. Described below in 11. 585-589. 
42 591. Gymnastic. Used here in the sense of robust, agile. 
42 595. A Mentor worthy. The counsellor of Telemachus. 

42 596. Costlier than Lucullus wore. A Roman general, celebrated 
for his victory over Mithridates, but even more noted for his luxury, the 
accounts of which are well-nigh fabulous. 



226 NOTES. 

44 648. Whose flambeaux. Gaslight was not introduced in Lon- 
don streets till 1807-9. Did not become general till 1814-20. Before 
that, the wealthy classes were lighted home by servants carrying these 
flambeaux before them. 

44 652. Is hackneyed home. Taken home in a hackney coach in- 
stead of her own carriage. 

44 657. Fortune's velvet altar. The gaming table. 

45 667. Now basket up. This and what follows is an illustration 
drawn from the practice of leaving foundlings on doorsteps. 

45 684. As catchpole-claws. An old English term for bailiff or 
constable. 

48 774. Oscitancy. Gaping, drowsiness. Latin, oscitans. 

48 780. I had a brother once. The Rev. John Cowper, a Fellow of 
Benet College, Cambridge, who died in 1770. 

49 816. Worm the base. Destroys by worms. 
49 830. Croaking nuisance. Cf. Exod. 8 : 5, 6. 



BOOK III. — THE GARDEN. 

Cowper began to amuse himself by work in the garden, while at 
Huntingdon. In May, 1767, he wrote to his friend Hill, " Having com- 
menced gardener I study the arts of pruning, sowing and planting, and 
enterprise everything in that way from melons down to cabbages. I 
have a large garden to display my abilities in, and were we twenty miles 
nearer London, I might turn higgler, and serve your honour with cauli- 
flower and broccoli [sic], at the best hand." His myrtles in the Temple 
show his native fondness for plants. That he made horticulture some- 
thing of a study is evident from his letter to Unwin, July 11, 1780 : " I 
have no oracular responses to make to you upon the subject of garden- 
ing, while I know that you have both Miller and Maul in your posses- 
sion ; to them I refer you, but especially to the latter, because it will be 
little or no trouble to consult him." 

51 21. Sounding-boards. A concave structure, generally of some 
resonant wood, placed over or behind the pulpit, to remedy acoustic 
defects in the budding or to propagate the sound of the preacher's 
voice. 

51 32. The nitrous air. Dr. Priestley's name for oxygen gas. 

51 52. Zoneless waist. Without the girdle, and with secondary 
meaning of loose, wanton. 

52 86. He that sharped. A sharper, one that cheats. 



NOTES. 227 

53 104. " Hypocrisy is the homage which Vice pays to Virtue " 
(Rochefoucauld, Alaximes, 223). 

53 108. I was a stricken deer. " My delineations of the heart are 
from my own experience, not one of them borrowed from books, or 
in the least degree conjectural " (letter to Unwin, Oct. 10, 1784). 

54 150 A reference to the sciences of geology and astronomy as 
opposing the teachings of the Bible in reference to the creation. Cow- 
per here reflects the theological views of his time. 

56 200. Cf. the well-known line of Terence : 

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. 

56 210-211. Allusion to Franklin's discovery by means of the kite. 

57 251. Wet with Castalian dews. Castalia, a spring at the foot 
of Mt. Parnassus sacred to the Muses, the waters of which gave inspira- 
tion to such as drank them. 

57 252. Newton, childlike sage. Sir Isaac Newton, born 1642 ; 
died 1727. Cowper's reference is to his work on the Prophecies. 

57 257-258. Our British Themis . . . Immortal Hale. In Homeric 
mythology, Themis was the goddess of law. Sir Matthew Hale, ap- 
pointed Chief Justice of England in 167 1 by Charles II. He was 
equally famed for legal attainments and for sanctity of life. 

58 285. What pearl. Cf. Matt. 13:46. 

59 326. Detested sport. Cowper's fondness for animals is one of 
his most striking characteristics. His letters and some of his minor 
poems embody it in different forms. " Lady Hesketh has put it on 
record that he had at one time five rabbits, three hares, two guinea pigs, 
a magpie, a jay, and a starling: beside two goldfinches, two canary 
birds and two dogs " (Wright, Life of Cowper, p. 218). 

60 334. One sheltered hare. Puss, who lived to be eleven years 
and eleven months old. Cowper's account of his three hares, Puss, 
Tiney, and Bess, in the Gentleman 's Magazine, June, 1874, is a classic 
in such descriptions. 

61 391. The fragrant lymph. Cf. 11. 38-40, The Winter Evening. 

62 400. Of lubbard Labour. Clumsy, slothful, now obsolete. 

63 429. Cf. Virgil, Georgics, Book II, 1. 82. 

63 446. The prickly and green-coated gourd. The cucumber. 
Cowper took pains and pride in his cultivation of this vegetable. 

63 452. Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice. Virgil is credited 
with a poem, The Culex, or Gnat, and Homer with the Battle of the 
Frogs and Mice, Batrachomyoniachy. 



228 NOTES. 

63 455. And in thy numbers, Philips. John Philips, who wrote the 
Splendid Shilling, of which Cowper's first poem at the age of seventeen, 
On finding the Heel of a Shoe, is an imitation. 

64 490. The voluble and restless earth. Voluble is here used in 
the sense of easily rolling. 

64 495. Like a gross fog Boeotian. Boeotia, owing perhaps to the 
number of its lakes, was noted for the prevalence of thick fogs, whence 
its inhabitants came to be regarded as dull-witted, obtuse. 

66 538. The fertilizing meal. The pollen. 

66 551. Your profuse regales. Sumptuous feasts. 

67 576. The amomum. An aromatic or spice plant. 

67 578-579. The spangled beau, ficoides. The ice plant. 

67 583. Levantine regions. Bordering on Mediterranean. 

67 585. Caffraria. Printed in first edition as Caffraia. A region 
in southeastern Africa. 

67 597. While Roscius trod the stage. The famous Roman actor, 
Cicero's instructor in the art of delivery. 

67 598. While Garrick. David Garrick, born 171 6, died 1779. 
The great English actor, — friend also of Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, and Goldsmith. 

69 641. Gothic as the scene. Rude, uncouth. 

71 714. Not as the prince in Shushan. Ahasuerus. 

71 715. His Vashti forth. Cf. Book of Esther, ch. 1. 

72 738. Whose Stygian throats. The Styx was fabled to flow nine 
times round the infernal regions. Hence was caused the darkness of 
Hell. 

72 766. The omnipotent magician, Brown. Lancelot Brown, called 
Capability Brown, a distinguished landscape gardener. Cowper had seen 
Brown's art in the treatment of the Throckmorton grounds at Weston. 

73 795-800. Bribery was rife in the time of Cowper. Macaulay in 
his Essay on the Earl of Chatham (Essays, vol. vi, p. 47) : "The pay 
office was turned into a mart for votes. Hundreds of members were 
closeted there with Fox, and, as there is too much reason to believe, 
departed carrying with them the wages of infamy. It was affirmed by 
persons who had the best opportunities of obtaining information that 
twenty-five thousand pounds were thus paid away in a single morning. 
The lowest bribe given, it was said, was a banknote for two hundred 
pounds." 

73 802. Crape and cocked pistol. Used by highwaymen for masks. 
Still in occasional use by modern burglars. 
75 848. His Abraham plead. Cf. Gen. 18 : 23-53. 



NOTES. 229 



BOOK IV. --THE WINTER EVENING. 

" It may have surprised some readers that so much of The Task is 
taken up with descriptions of scenes in winter. But it must be remem- 
bered that nearly the whole of the poem was written in the winter 
months, and not only so, but in the severest winter that had been 
experienced for nearly fifty years " (Wright, Life of Cowper, p. 339). 

76 l. O'er yonder bridge. The ancient bridge of three arches, 
uniting the parishes of Olney and Emberton, erected probably in 161 9. 
Its continuation of twenty-four arches was added in the reign of Queen 
Anne by Sir Robert Throckmorton and Mr. Robert Lowndes to facili- 
tate communication between their houses. " The whole length of this 
bridge, together with a view of the road at a distance, was, as Cowper 
observes, commanded by the chamber windows of the vicarage " 
{Town of Cowper, p. 20). 

77 25. Have our troops awaked ? Another reference to the conduct 
of the war in America. 

77 28-30. Is India free ? . . . Or do we grind her still ? " To 
speak here figuratively, I would abandon all territorial interest in a 
country to which we can have no right, and which we cannot govern 
with any security to the happiness of the inhabitants, or without the 
danger of incurring either perpetual broils, or the most insupportable 
tyranny at home " (letter to Newton, Jan. 25, 1784). 

77 50. This folio. The newspaper. 

78 85. ^Ethereal journeys. The first balloon ascent was made by 
the Montgolfier brothers, June 5, 1783. Cowper wrote to Unwin in 
reference to the crossing the channel in a balloon by Blanchard and 
Jeffries, Jan. 7, 1785 : " I have been crossing the channel in a balloon 
ever since I read of that achievement by Blanchard." 

78 86. And Katerfelto. A mountebank, calling himself ' Doctor ' 
Katerfelto, taking about with him a black cat and heading his adver- 
tisements with the words, " Wonders ! Wonders ! Wonders ! " 

79 114-119. He travels, and I too. Cowper was fond of reading 
books of travel, as his letters show. " I am much obliged to you for 
the Voyages, which I received and began to read last night. My 
imagination is so captivated upon these occasions that I seem to par- 
take with the navigators in all the dangers they encountered " (letter 
to Newton, Oct. 6, 1783). 

79 120. Ruler of the inverted year. " Inversum . . . annum. 
Horace, Sat., Lib. I, 1, 36. 



230 NOTES. 

81 162. And the clear voice. Lady Austen was accustomed to 
sing, accompanying herself on the harpsichord, songs of Cowper's 
composing, e.g., " No longer I follow a sound," " When all within is 
peace," " Dirge on the loss of the Royal George." 

81 190. The Sabine bard. Horace, Sat., Book II, 6, 65. 

O noctes coenaeque Deum. 

82 195. The tragic fur. Probably the dress of the tragedian. 

82 221. Billiard mace. Printed in early editions, billiard-mast, an 
older form. 

84 285. A soul that does not always think. " I can assert with the 
strictest truth, that I not only do not think with connexion, but that I 
frequently do not think at all" (letter to Newton, Oct. 9, 1784), 

84 292. The sooty films. Threads of soot hanging from the bars 
of the grate, which, according to popular superstition, heralded the 
coming of a stranger. 

85 316. The weedy fallows. Land left untilled. 

87 363. The unhealthful east. The east wind. 

88 427. I mean the man. The reference, made designedly obscure 
by Cowper (letter to Unwin, Oct. 10, 1784), is to Mr. Robert Smith, 
afterwards Lord Carrington. "Though laid under the strictest injunc- 
tions of secrecy, both by him and by yourself, I consider myself as under 
no obligation to conceal from you the remittances he made. . . . He 
sent forty pounds, twenty at a time. Olney has not had such a friend 
this many a day " (letter to Unwin, Jan. 19, 1783). 

89 437. Plashed neatly. Bent down and woven together. 

90 475. Lethean leave. Lethe, the river of Hades, whose waters, 
when drunk, caused forgetfulness. 

91 507. Midas finger. A king of Phrygia whose touch turned every- 
thing to gold. 

91 515. Arcadian scenes that Maro sings. Virgil in his Eclogues. 

91 516. Sidney, warbler of poetic prose. Sir Philip Sidney in the 
Arcadia. 

91 517. Dianas then. Diana, the virgin goddess of hunting. 

92 533. Is tramontane. Beyond the mountain, hence barbarous. 

92 540. With lappets pinned aloft. High headdress worn in 
Cowper's time. Cf. Addison's paper in the Spectator, No. 98, on the 
headdress of ladies in his day. 

93 597. His reverence and his worship. His priestly and his 
magisterial office. 

94 609. 'Twas a bribe. Cf. Book III, 11. 795-800. 



NOTES. 231 

94 627. Is balloted. Drawn for the militia. " The number of men 
to be chosen by ballot out of the list returned" (1786, Act 26, Geo. 
III). 

95 642. As meal and larded locks. The use of hairdressing was 
in 1799 discontinued in the British army by general order. 

96 671. Chartered boroughs. " A municipal corporation not a city, 
endorsed by royal charter, with certain privileges." 

96 680-683. Cowper always refers to the East India Company as 
oppressing India. 

97 707. Of Tityrus. The name of the shepherd boy in Virgil's 
first Eclogue : 

Tityre, tu recubans sub tegmine fagi. 

97 723. Ingenious Cowley. Abraham Cowley, M. D., 1618-67, 
noted for his Pindaric Odes and also for his Essays. 

97 728. Chertsey's silent bowers. Cowley's home, a farm at Chertsey. 

98 757. Grace the well. " The poet's meaning of the word ' well ' 
appears to be that the citizen's garden, being hemmed in by walls, is, 
as it were, a well which is bricked round " (Notes and Queries, Third 
Series, vol. iii, p. 198). 

98 765. The Frenchman's darling. Mignonette. 



BOOK V. — THE WINTER MORNING WALK. 

101 22. And the bents. Stiff, wiry grasses. 

101 46. Half lurcher. A mongrel, cross between a greyhound and 
sheep-dog, noted for its keenness of scent. 

103 102. The mill-dam. Of Lavendon Mill. 

104 129. Imperial mistress. The Empress Anna. 

104 131. The wonder of the North. The ice palace of St. Peters- 
burg, built in 1740, by order of the Empress Anna, of ice blocks cut 
from the Neva. 

104 135. Aristaeus found. An allusion to the story told in Virgil's 
Georgics, IV, 1. 317 et seq. 

105 178. At hewing mountains into men. A Macedonian sculptor, 
Dinocrates, it is said, offered to carve a figure of Alexander the Great 
from Mt. Athos. 

105 179. Human wonders mountain high. The Pyramids of Egypt. 

105 189. To extort their truncheons. Originally a trunk of a tree, 
then a shaft, and finally a baton of authority. 

106 193. When Babel was confounded. Cf. Gen. 11 : 1-9. 



232 NOTES. 

106 217. Him, Tubal named. Tubal-cain ; cf. Gen. 4 : 22. 
108 266. Fume him so. Burn incense to him. 

108 282. Storks among frogs. Allusions to ^Esop's Fable, The 
Frogs desiring a King. 

109 316. The beggarly last doit. A Netherlands coin of very 
small value, yi of a stiver. 

109 322. Jotham ascribed. The fable of the trees, found in Judges 

9:7-i5- 

110 330-335. Cowper's political ideas would be classed as liberal. 
His letters show him deeply interested in them, though he wrote New- 
ton, Dec. 4, 1 78 1 : " Henceforth I have done with politics." 

110 355-370. But Covvper hardly extended this sympathy to the cause 
of the American colonies. Cf. Expostulation, 11. 280-284 and letter to 
Newton, October, 1753. 

111 383. The Bastille. Originally built as a royal chateau in 1369 
by Charles V. First used as a prison by Louis XL Destroyed July 
14, 1789, by the French Revolutionists. 

112 400. Him of Babylon. Cf. Daniel 4: 10-18. 

112 418. Engraven on the mouldy walls. Of Beauchamp Tower 
in Tower of London. " The walls are half covered with inscriptions 
from the hands of its prisoners " (Hare, Walks in London, vol. i, 
p. 402). 

112 421. To turn purveyor. "A spider too had weaved a noble 
edifice upon my walls ; I often gave him a feast of gnats or flies " 
(Silvio Pellico, My Prison, p. 77). 

113 444. The Manichean God. Manicheism held to two eternal 
principles of good and evil, and that the world or matter was created 
by the Evil Spirit. 

114 486. Our Hampdens and our Sidneys. John Hampden, born 
1594, distinguished for his opposition to ship money in the time of 
Charles I. He took arms against the royal cause ; was wounded near 
Oxford, and died 1643. Algernon Sidney, born 1621, an adherent of 
Parliament and holding Republican principles, was, on the restoration 
of Charles II, charged with complicity in the Rye House Plot and 
barbarously executed in 1683. 

117 585. Propense his heart to idols. Disposed, prone. 

119 635. Cf. Milton's Covins, 11. 706-755. 

120 675. The first and only fair. Cf. 

Go soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere 
To the first Good, first Perfect and first Fair. 

Pope's Essay on Man, Epistles 2 123. 



NOTES. 233 

120 693. The shag of savage nature. Coarse hair literally. 
Here roughness — ferocity. 

121 707. The historic Muse. Clio was the Muse of History, and is 
represented sometimes seated, sometimes standing with a scroll in one 
hand and stylus or pen in the other. 

121 730. Is cold on this. Cf. Gibbon's treatment of the Christian 
martyrs in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

122 737. His green withes. Cf. Judges 16:7-10, 
124 819. When every star. Cf. Job 38 : 7. 



BOOK VI. — THE WINTER WALK AT NOON. 

128 6. Village bells. The Olney church had a chime of six bells 
{vide Wright's Town of Cozvper, p. 30). 

130 66. The embattled tower. That of Emberton church. 

130 70. The walk, still verdant. From the Rustic Bridge to the 
Alcove. 

130, 131 85-87. Cowper here anticipates Wordsworth in much that 
is characteristic of the latter poet. Cf. The Fountain, The Two April 
Mornings. 

132 126. As once in Gibeon. Cf. Joshua 10: 12-14. 

132 132-133. Cf. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Book III, ch. 8. Natural 
Supernaturalism . 

133 165. Hypericum all bloom. A shrub-like plant of the St. 
Johns-wort family, bearing yellowish flowers. 

133 167. Mezereon too. The Daphne. 

133 170. Althaea with the purple eye. Hollyhock or marsh- 
mallow. 

135 233. Pomona, Pales, Pan. Pomona was goddess of garden 
fruits. Pales, originally worshiped in Sicily, the deity of cattle rear- 
ing. Pan, the god who watched over the pasture fields, herdsmen, and 
herds. 

135 234. And Flora and Vertumnus. Flora, the goddess of buds 
and flowers, worshiped also under the title of Chloris. Vertumnus, 
the husband of Pomona, worshiped by the Romans as a deity watch- 
ing over the seasons as well as the garden fruits. 

136 285. The difference of a Guido. An eminent Italian painter, 
born about 1575; died 1642 at Bologna. His masterpieces were either 
devotional or pathetic subjects, like the Assumption or the Martyrdom 
of St. Peter. 



234 NOTES. 

136 287. The Langford of the show. Langford, a noted auction 
dealer in pictures, etc., at Covent Garden. 

137 298. Nor stranger. Cf. Prov. 14:10. 

137 320 et seq. This passage and that below 1. 384 reveal one very 
marked trait of Cowper, his tenderness toward the lower animals. 
141 444. Cf. Exod. 23 : 5. 
141 446. Cf. Deut. 22 : 6, 7. 

141 451. Cf. Gen. 9:2,3. 

142 461. Cf. Ps. 147 :g. 

142 467. A Balaam's heart. Cf. Num. 22 : 22-34. 

142 485. Misagathus. Hategood. 

142 490. Evander. Goodman. 

143 595. Mercy to him. Cf. Matt. 5 -.7. 

147 635. Commemoration-mad. An allusion to the Handel Com- 
memoration in Westminster Abbey, June, 1784. Mr. Newton preached 
fifty expository sermons on the passages of Scripture Handel had 
selected as the themes of his ' Messiah.' In a letter to Unwin, Nov. 
20, 1784, Cowper depicts an imaginary scene in the abbey during the 
Commemoration. An angel descends, holds a brief colloquy with 
the commemorators, and ends it by saying, " So, then, because Handel 
sets anything to music you sing them in honor of Handel; and because 
he composed the music of Italian songs you sing them in a church. 
Truly Handel is much obliged to you, but God is greatly dishonored." 

147 652. To buckram out. Buckram was a stiff linen cloth, 
glue-sized, and was used for linings. Here it means to make a perish- 
able memory stand out. 

147 658. Of old Ely House. Ely Place, Holborn, the London 
residence of the Bishop of Ely. 

147 659. When wandering Charles. Charles Edward, the Pre- 
tender, defeated at Culloden, April 16, 1746, by William, Duke of 
Cumberland. 

147 663. Sung to the praise, etc. Allusion to the story that on the 
arrival of the news of victory on Sunday morning, the parish clerk, 
while conducting the church service, in his exultation said : " Let us 
sing to the praise of King George." 

148 674. King Richard's bunch. Allusion to the humpback of 
King Richard. 

148 675. Hamlet's inky cloak. 

'T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother. 

Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii, 1. 77. 



NOTES. 235 

148 678. For Garrick was a worshipper. David Garrick, by his 
presentation on the stage of Shakespeare's great characters, did much 
to perpetuate the fame of the great dramatist. 

148 680. Solemn ceremonial of the day. Garrick carried out a 
Shakespeare service at Stratford-on-Avon, September, 1769. 

148 685. The mulberry-tree. The mulberry-tree planted by Shake- 
speare in his garden at New Place, Stratford-on-Avon. 

151 773. The libbard. For leopard. Cf. Isa. 11:7; 65:25. 

151 780. Cf. Isa. 11:8. 

152 805. Cf. Isa. 60 : 7. 

152 806. Cf. " The wealth of Ormus or of Ind," Paradise Lost, 
Book II, 1. 2. 

152 807. And Saba's spicy groves. Arabia Felix. 

152 812. Cf. Ps. 68:31. 

153 867. Cf . Luke 23 : 30. 

154 870. Cf. 2 Peter 3 : 4. 

154 881-887. Allusion to Church of England divines who held 
Socinian views ; one of whom, Theophiles Lindsey, resigned his living 
Nov. 12, 1773. See article in Contemporary Review, A Broad Church 
Vicar, vol. xxiii, p. 720. 

156 949. Cf. Gen. 24 : 6^. 

157 1002-1005. Cowper's wish here expressed for a speedy and un- 
suffering release from life was hardly granted. 

158 1006-1016. Cowper here alludes first to the beginning of The 
Task, in Book I, at the suggestion of Lady Austen. He also attributes 
its later more serious view to the influence of Mrs. Unwin. The 
rupture with Lady Austen took place in May, 1784. In his letter, 
accompanying the MS. of The Task, to Unwin, Oct. 10, 1784, Cowper 
says, " What there is of a religious cast in the volume I have thrown 
toward the end of it for two reasons : first, that I might not revolt the 
reader at his entrance ; and, secondly, that my best impressions might 
be made last." Cowper, however, was mistaken in thinking that the 
best parts of The Task are found in its religious passages. 



236 NOTES. 



RETIREMENT. 



Written August-October, 1781. " I have a subject in hand which 
promises me a great abundance of poetical matter, which, for want of 
a something I am not able to describe, I cannot at present proceed 
with. The name of it is Retirement, and my purpose to recommend 
the proper improvement of it, to set forth the requisites for that end, 
and to enlarge upon the happiness of that state of life when managed 
as it ought to be " (letter to Unwin, Aug. 25, 1781). 

159 15. Thus Conscience pleads. Cowper's view is that this uni- 
versal demand for retirement, however stifled or suppressed for the 
time, being ethical in its nature must at last assert itself. 

161 87. « These are thy glorious works." Cf. Paradise Lost, Book 

V, 1.153- 

162 111-116. Cf. Pope's scale of being, Essay on Man, Epis. 1. 

166 247. Thyrsis, Alexis. Characters in the seventh and second 
Eclogues of Virgil. 

167 279. Virtuous and faithful Heberden. William Heberden, 
M. D., an eminent practitioner and also lecturer on materia medica at 
Cambridge. Cowper consulted him concerning the attack of illness at 
the Temple in 1763. "As Saul sought to the witch, so did I to the 
physician, Dr. Heberden." 

167 283-296. A portrait of himself in his melancholy of despair. 

170 394. The disencumbered Atlas. Atlas, leader of the Titans, 
variously represented in mythology as bearing heaven or heaven and 
earth upon his shoulders. 

171 421. Green balks. A ridge left unploughed between furrows. 
Alluded to in these lines from Browne's British Pastorals, I, IV, 585 : 

And as the ploughman when the land he tills 
Throws up the fruitful earth in rigid hills 
Between whose chevron form he leaves a balk, 
So 'twixt these hills had Nature formed a walk. 

173 479. Flies to the levee. In England, a morning reception by 
the Court for men. 

174 516. Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge Wells. Fashionable water- 
ing places. 

174 521. Caravans, and hoys. A covered vehicle shortened some- 
times into ' van,' and a small coasting vessel for carrying passengers. 

174 525-536. Alluding to this passage, Cowper says in his letter to 
Unwin, Sept. 26, 1781: "I think with you that the most magnificent 
object under heaven is the great deep." 



NOTES. 237 

174 537. Nereids or Dryads. Nereids, "marine nymphs of the 
Mediterranean in contradistinction from the Naiads, or nymphs of 
fresh water, and the Oceanides, or nymphs of the great ocean " (Smith's 
Diet, of Mythology). Dryad, a wood-nymph whose life was coeval with 
the tree with which she had come into existence. 

175 570. Thomson's song. The poem, Thomson's Seasons. 

175 571. Cobham's groves. Viscount Cobham, whose gardens at 
Stowe were greatly admired by Pope {Moral Essays, Epis. 4, 11. 

70-75)- 

175 571. Windsor's green retreats. Described by Pope in his 
Windsor Forest. 

179 688. Built God a church. At Ferney, Voltaire built a chapel, 
on which was graven " Deo erexit Voltaire." 

179 691 Learned philologists. Generally thought to be a thrust at 
John Home Tooke. His letter to Dunning, then published, prefigured 
the Diversions of Parley, 1786 — -a book viewed askance by the 
orthodox theologians of that day. 

180 713. Every month's Review. The Monthly Review, 1749-89. 
By several hands. Printed for R. Griffiths. 

180 739. I praise the Frenchman. Bruyere, who wrote The Charac- 
ters of Th.eophrastus. 

182 801. Me poetry . . . employs. "It is not when I will, nor 
upon what I will, but as a thought happens to occur to me ; and then 
I versify, whether I will or not. I never write but for my amusement ; 
and what I write is sure to answer that end, if it answers no other " 
(letter to Unwin, July 11, 1780). 



THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOWWORM. 

" Alas ! what can I do with my wit ? I have not enough to do great 
things with, and these little things are so fugitive, that while a man 
catches at the subject, he is only filling his hand with smoke. . . . My 
whisking wit has produced the following, the subject of which is more 
important than the manner in which I have treated it seems to imply ; 
but a fable may speak truth, and all truth is sterling " (letter to Unwin, 
Feb. 27, 1780). 

183 12. Thought to put him in his crop. " In a philosophical tract 
in the Register I found it asserted that the glowworm is the night- 
ingale's food " (letter to Unwin, Feb. 27, 1780). 



238 NOTES. 

REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, 

NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS. 

The MS. of this poem was sent in a letter to Hill, Dec. 25, 1780, and 
now in the British Museum has this superscription : 

Nose Plf; Eyes Deft; 
Vid. Plowden, folio 6000. 

Cowper wrote Hill: " I have heard of common law judgments before 
now, indeed have been present at the delivery of some that, according 
to my poor apprehension, while they paid the utmost respect to the letter 
of a statute, have departed widely from the spirit of it ; and being gov- 
erned entirely by the point of law, have left equity, reason, and common 
sense behind them at an infinite distance. You will judge whether the 
following report of a case, drawn up by myself, be not a proof and 
illustration of this satirical assertion." Hill was a successful lawyer. 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN: 

SHOWING HOW HE WENT FARTHER THAN HE INTENDED AND CAME 
SAFE HOME AGAIN. 

Lady Austen told the story of John Gilpin to Cowper, then in a fit 
of deep dejection, on an October evening, 1782. Cowper at first paid 
little attention. Finally the humor of it struck him ; he burst into a 
peal of laughter and the same night began his ballad. Wright's Life 
of Cowper, p. 311, says that all the day following and for several days 
he shut himself up in the greenhouse, perfecting what he had written. 

" I little thought when I was writing the history of John Gilpin that 
he would appear in print. I intended to laugh, and to make two or 
three others laugh, of whom you were one. . . . And, strange as it may 
seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the 
saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been 
written at all " (letter to Unwin, Nov. 18, 1782). 



NOTES. 239 



ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. 

[Written when the news arrived.] 

Of this poem there were two versions, one in English and the other 
in Latin. From Cowper's letter to Hill, Oct. 20, 1783, we learn that 
only the Latin version was published in the poet's life-time. " I must 
beg leave, however, ... to mourn that the Royal George cannot be 
weighed ; the rather because I wrote two poems, one Latin and one 
English, to encourage the attempt. The former of these only . . . pub- 
lished." 

The disaster happened Aug. 12, 1782. Cowper's poems were written 
in September. 



EPITAPH ON A HARE. 

" You know that I kept two hares. I have written nothing since I 
saw you but an epitaph on one of them, which died last week. I 
send you the first impression of it " (letter to the Rev. William Bull, 
March 7, 1783). 

196 5. Surliest of his kind. Tiney was his name. In his Account 
of the Treatment of His Hares, sent the Gentleman 's Magazine, Cowper 
said : " Upon him (Tiney) the kindest treatment had not the slightest 
effect. He, too, was sick, and in his sickness had an equal share of my 
attention ; but if after his recovery I took the liberty to stroke him he 
would grunt, strike with his forefeet, spring forward and bite. He was, 
however, very entertaining in his way; even his surliness was matter 
of mirth." 

197 40. Gentler Puss. See Cowper's letter to Newton, Aug. 21, 
1780, giving an account of her escape and recapture. 



THE POPLAR FIELD. 

Published in the Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1785. 

Cowper tells the story of its origin in a letter to Lady Hesketh, May 
1, 1786. "There was some time since, in a neighboring parish called 
Lavendon, a field one side of which formed a terrace, and the other 
was planted with poplars, at whose foot ran the Ouse, that I used to 



240 NOTES, 

account a little paradise. But the poplars have been felled, and the 
scene has suffered so much by the loss that, though still in point of 
prospect beautiful, it has not charms sufficient to attract me now." 

After reading this poem, Tennyson said : " People nowadays, I 
believe, hold this style and metre light; I wish there were any who 
could put words together with such exquisite flow and evenness " 
{Tennyson's Life, vol. ii, p. 50). 

Cowper afterwards altered the last stanza in the following manner : 

The change both my heart and my fancy employs, 
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys ; 
Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures we see 
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we. 

Note to Ed. 0/1803. 



THE ROSE. 



" I send you the petite piece I promised, not quite so worthy of your 
notice ; but it is yours by engagement, otherwise I believe you would 
never have seen it " (letter to Rev. William Bull, June 20, 1783). 

The poem was published in the Gentleman 's Magazine for June, 1785. 
Sir J. Stephen conjectures that the lines convey a veiled rebuke to 
Newton, " whose ungentle touch was occasionally put forth at the 
Vicarage to dry up his tears." With this conjecture Rev. Mr. Benham 
coincides (Globe Ed. Cowper, p. 524). 



THE DOG AND THE WATER-LILY. 

" I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walking by the riverside, 
I observed some water-lilies floating at a little distance from the bank. 
They are a large white flower, with an orange-coloured eye, very beauti- 
ful. I had a desire to gather one, and having your long cane in my 
hand, by the help of it endeavoured to bring one of them within my 
reach. But the attempt proved vain, and I walked forward. Beau 
had all the while observed me very attentively. Returning soon after 
toward the same place, I observed him plunging into the river, while I 
was about forty yards distant from him ; and when I had nearly reached 
the spot he swam to land with a lily in his mouth, which he came 
arid laid at my foot " (letter to Lady Hesketh, June 27, 1788). 

199 7. Two nymphs. The daughters of Sir Robert Gunning. 



NOTES. 241 



THE NEEDLESS ALARM. 

[A Tale.] 

201 3. Kilwick's echoing wood. To the west of Olney, not far 
from which is Cowper's oak. 

202-203 55-70. These lines are a distinct prophecy of Wordsworth. 
Cf. the Lines on Tintern Abbey, The Tables Turned, Lines written in 
Early Spring. 



ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. 

" I am delighted with Mrs. Bodham's kindness in giving me the only 
picture of my own mother that is to be found, I suppose, in all the 
world. I had rather possess it than the richest jewel in the British 
crown, for I loved her with an affection that her death, fifty-two years 
since, has not in the least abated. I remember her, too, young as I was 
when she died, well enough to know that it is a very exact resemblance 
of her, and as such it is to me invaluable " (letter to Lady Hesketh, Feb. 
26, 1790). 

Two days after the receipt of the picture he wrote Mrs. Bodham : " I 
received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of 
nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt had the 
dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it and hung 
it where it is the last object I see at night, and of course the first on 
which I open my eyes in the morning." Cowper wrote the poem at 
once under the pressure of these emotions. To Mrs. King he wrote 
March 12, 1790: " I have written a poem on the receipt of it (the pic- 
ture); a poem which, one excepted, I had more pleasure in writing than 
any I ever wrote." The exception is the Lines to Mrs. Unwin, "who 
has supplied to me the place of my own mother, my own invaluable 
mother, these six-and-twenty years." 

205 14. A mother lost so long. She died when Cowper was but six 
years old. 

206 45. Ne'er forgot. Cowper wrote Hill, November, 1784, six 
years before this poem was composed : " I can truly say that not a week 
passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day) in which I do 
not think of her " (his mother). 

206 53. The pastoral house. Cowper's name for the Rectory. 
208 98. Thy loved consort. Cowper's father died July 9, 1756. 
208 108-109. Cowper's ancestry was of gentle blood. 



242 NOTES. 



YARDLEY OAK. 

w Yardley oak, the tree to which the poem is addressed, the hollow 
tree, the tree said by Cowper to be 22 ft. 6*4, in. in girth, is the one 
now called ' Cowper's oak,' situated three miles from Weston, just 
beyond Kilwick Wood" (Wright, Life of Cowper, p. 491). In a letter 
to Lady Hesketh, Sept. 13, 1788 : " I walked with him (Mr. Gifford) 
yesterday on a visit to an oak on the border of Yardley Chase, an oak 
which I often visit, and which is one of the wonders that I show to all 
who come this way and have never seen it. I tell them that it is a thou- 
sand years old, believing it to be so, though I do not know it. A mile 
beyond this oak stands another, which has from time immemorial been 
known by the name of Judith, and is said to have been an oak when 
my namesake, the Conqueror, first came hither." 

209 10. Our forefather Druids. The rites of Dmidical worship were 
celebrated in oak groves. 

209 15. Like Adam. Cf. Gen. 3:8. 

209 35. The fabled twins. The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. 
According to one tradition, born at the same time with their sister 
Helena out of an egg. 

210 41. As in Dodona. The oracle of Zeus in a grove of oaks at 
Dodona in Epirus. One of the most ancient Greek oracles, and rank- 
ing as one of the three highest. 

211 96. Of some flagged admiral. The admiral's flagship. 
213 161. The poem was never completed. 



TO MARY. 



These lines were written in the autumn of 1793. Ever since Dec. 
21, 1 791, when she suffered a paralytic stroke, Mrs. Unwin had been 
more or less enfeebled. Her mind at length became weakened, and 
it was while in this second childhood that Cowper wrote the poem. 
She survived till December, 1796. 

214 1. The twentieth year. Alluding to Cowper's violent and long- 
continued attack of insanity in 1773. 

214 9. Thy needles. w Her constant employment is knitting stock- 
ings, which she does with the finest needles I ever saw. . . . She sits 



NOTES. 243 

knitting on one side of the table, in her spectacles, and he (Cowper) on 
the other, reading to her (when he is not employed in writing) in his " 
(Lady Hesketh to Theodora Cowper, June, 1786). 



THE CASTAWAY. 

This poem, the last and saddest Cowper ever wrote, was suggested 
to him by an incident narrated in Anson's Voyages. He had read the 
book years before. He recalled the story in connection with his trans- 
lation of Montes Glaciates and wrote the poem March 20, 1799. -^ 
was written, therefore, in the last year of his life. He died April 25, 
1800. 



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introduction, $1.12. 

The Forms of Discourse. With an introductory chapter on style. By 
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Outlines of the Art of Expression. By J. H. Gilmore, Professor of 
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Cloth. 117 pages. For introduction, 60 cents. 

The Rhetoric Tablet. By F. N. Scott, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, 
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Rhetoric, Ohio State University. No. 1, white paper (ruled). No. 2, 
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Public Speaking and Debate. A manual for advocates and agitators. 
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TEXT-BOOKS ON RHETORIC 

FOR HIGHER SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 

By JOHN F. GENUNG, 

Professor of Rhetoric in A mherst College. 

The Practical Elements of Rhetoric. i2mo. Cloth. 483 pages. 

For introduction, $1.25. 

Outlines of Rhetoric. Embodied in rules, illustrative examples, and 
a progressive course of prose composition. i2mo. Cloth. 
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A Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis. Studies in style and inven- 
tion, designed to accompany the author's " Practical Elements of 
Rhetoric." i2mo. Cloth. 306 pages. Introduction and teachers' 
price, $1.12. 

Professor Genung's Practical Elements of Rhetoric, though 
a work on a trite subject, has aroused general enthusiasm by 
its freshness and practical worth. 

The treatment is characterized by good sense, simplicity, 
originality, availability, completeness, and ample illustration. 

It is throughout constructive and the student is regarded 
at every step as endeavoring to make literature. All of the 
literary forms have been given something of the fullness 
hitherto accorded only to argument and oratory. 

The Outlines of Rhetoric is in no sense a condensation or 
adaptation of the author's " Elements," but an entirely new 
book prepared for a different field. 

Great care has been taken in this work to state the prin- 
ciples in such plain and simple language that the pupil will 
not fail to understand ; and such is its clearness that even 
beginners will find many of the deeper principles of expres- 
sion, as well as the simpler, both lucid and interesting. 

The Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis follows the general plan 
of the "Elements," being designed to alternate with that 
from time to time, as different stages of the subject are 
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THE HARVARD EDITION OF 

SHAKESPEARE'S COMPLETE WORKS 

By HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D., 

Attthor of the '■'Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare" 
Editor of "School Shakespeare," etc. 

In twenty volumes, duodecimo, two plays in each volume ; also in ten volumes, 
of four plays each. 

RETAIL PRICES: 

--vol. edition {JSJU: : $ 55°oo| «"-■-«*» { ^fcaif \ \ *££ 



The Harvard Edition has been undertaken and the plan of it 
shaped with a special view to making the Poet's pages pleasant and 
attractive to general readers. A history of each play is given in its 
appropriate volume. The plays are arranged in three distinct series : 
Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies ; and the plays of each series pre- 
sented, as nearly as may be, in the chronological order of the writing. 

A special merit of this edition is, that each volume has two sets of 
notes, — one mainly devoted to explaining the text, and placed at the 
foot of the page, the other mostly occupied with matters of textual 
comment and criticism, and printed at the end of each play. The 
edition is thus admirably suited to the uses both of the general reader 
and of the special student. 

Horace Howard Furness : A noble edition, with happy mingle of illustration, 
explanation, and keen, subtle, sympathetic criticism. 

Professor Dowden : Hudson's edition takes its place beside the best work of 
English Shakespeare students. 

Professor C. T. Winchester : It seems to me, without question, the best edition 
now printed. 

Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare 

By HENRY N. HUDSON. 

In two volumes. 
i2mo. 1003 pages. Retail prices : cloth, $4.00; half calf, $8.00. 

Edwin Booth, the great actor and eminent Shakespearean scholar, 
once said that he received more real good from the original criticisms 
and suggestive comments as given by Dr. Hudson in these two books 
than from any other writer on Shakespeare. 



GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, 

Boston. New York. Chicago. Atlanta. Dallas. 



HUDSON'S SHAKESPEARE 



For School and Home Use. 



By HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D., 

Atithor of "The Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare, 
Editor of " The Harvard Shakespeare" etc. 



Revised and enlarged Editions of twenty-three Plays. Carefully expurgated, 

with explanatory Notes at the bottom of the page, and critical Notes at 

the end of each volume. One play in each volume. 
Square i6mo. Varying in size from 128 to 253 pages. Mailing price of each: 

cloth, 50 cents; paper, 35 cents. Introduction price, cloth, 45 cents; 

paper, 30 cents. Per set (in box), $10.00. 

Why is Hudson's Shakespeare the standard in a majority of the best 
schools where the greatest attention is paid to this subject ? Because 
Dr. Hudson was the ablest Shakespearean scholar America has ever 
known. His introductions to the plays of Shakespeare are well worth 
the price of the volume. He makes the characters almost living flesh 
and blood, and creates a great interest on the part of the student and a 
love for Shakespeare's works, without which no special progress can be 
made. Whoever can command the interest of the pupil in a great 
author or his works is the person who renders the greatest service. 

The list of plays in Hudson's School Shakespeare is as follows : 



A Midsummer Night's Dream. Henry the Fourth, Part I . 



The Merchant of Venice. 
Much Ado about Nothing. 
As You Like It. 
The Tempest. 
King John. 
Richard the Second. 
Richard the Third. 



Henry the Fourth, Part II. 
Henry the Fifth. 
Henry the Eighth. 
Romeo and Juliet. 
Julius Caesar. 
Hamlet. 
King Lear. 



Macbeth. 

Antony and Cleopatra, 

Othello. 

Cymbeline. 

Coriolanus. 

Twelfth Night. 

The Winter's Tale. 



C. T. Winchester, Professor of Eng- 
lish Literature, Wesley an University: 
The notes and comments in the school 
edition are admirably fitted to the need of 
the student, removing his difficulties by 
stimulating his interest and quickening his 
perception. 



Hiram Corson, Professor of English 
Literature, Cornell University : I con- 
sider them altogether excellent. The 
notes give all the aid needed for an under- 
standing of the text, without waste and 
distraction of the student's mind. The 
introductory matter to the several plays is 
especially worthy of approbation. 



We invite correspondence with all who are interested in the 
study of Shakespeare in the class-room. 



GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, 

Boston. New York. Chicago. Atlanta. Dallas. 



The Athen^um Press Series. 



The following volumes are now ready: • 

Sidney's Defense of Poesy. Edited by Professor Albert S. Cook 
of Yale University. 103 pages. 80 cents. 

Ben Jonson's Timber ; or Discoveries. Edited by Professor Felix 
E. Schelling of the University of Pennsylvania. 166 pages. 80 
cents. 

Selections from the Essays of Francis Jeffrey. Edited by Lewis E. 
Gates, Instructor in Harvard University. 213 pages. 90 cents. 

Old English Ballads. Edited by Professor F. B. Gummere of Haver- 
ford College. 380 pages. $1.25. 

Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Gray. Edited by 
Professor Wm. L. Phelps of Yale University. 179 pages. 90 
cents. 

A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics. Edited by Professor F. E. Schelling 
of the University of Pennsylvania. 327 pages. $1.12. 

Herrick: Selections from the Hesperides and the Noble Numbers. 
Edited by Professor Edward E. Hale, Jr., of Union University. 
200 pages. 90 cents. 

Selections from the Poems of Keats. Edited by Professor Arlo 
Bates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 302 pages. 
$1.00. 

Selections from the Works of Sir Richard Steele. Edited by Profes- 
sor George R. Carpenter of Columbia University. Cloth. 203 
pages. 90 cents. 

Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. Edited by Professor Archibald Mac- 
Mechan of Dalhousie College, Halifax, N.S. 429 pages. $1.25. 

Selections from Wordsworth's Poems. Edited by Professor Edward 
Dowden of the University of Dublin. 522 pages. $1.25. 

Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama. Edited by Professor 
John M. Manly of Brown University. In three volumes. Vols. 
I. and II. now ready. $1.25 each. 

Selections from Malory's Morte Darthur. Edited by Professor 
William E. Mead of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. 
348 pages. $1.00. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Edited by Professor 
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THE CLASSIC MYTHS 

IN 

ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

By CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of California 
and formerly Assistant-Professor of Latin in the University of Michigan. 



i2mo. Half leather. 540 pages. For introduction, $1.50. 
New Edition with 16 full-page illustrations. 

This work, based chiefly on Bulfinch's " Age of Fable " 
(1855), has here been adapted to school use and in large 
part rewritten. It is recommended both as the best manual 
of mythology and as indispensable to the student of our 
literature. 

Special features of this edition are : 

1. An introduction on the indebtedness of English poetry to the 
literature of fable ; and on methods of teaching mythology. 

2. An elementary account of myth-making and of the principal 
poets of mythology, and of the beginnings of the world, of gods and 
of men among the Greeks. 

3. A thorough revision and systematization of Bulfinch's Stories of 
Gods and Heroes : with additional stories, and with selections from 
English poems based upon the myths. 

4. Illustrative cuts from Baumeister, Roscher, and other standard 
authorities on mythology. 

5. The requisite maps. 

6. Certain necessary modifications in Bulfinch's treatment of the 
mythology of nations other than the Greeks and Romans. 

7. Notes, following the text (as in the school editions of Latin and 
Greek authors), containing an historical and interpretative commentary 
upon certain myths, supplementary poetical citations, a list of the betteJ! 
known allusions to mythological fiction, references to works of artj 
and hints to teachers and students. 



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